Word: lemass
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Poor Risk. But in the turbulent years when the Irish rebels fought against Britain's Black and Tans, Sean Lemass grew into a rugged guerrilla fighter in the I.R.A.'s Dublin Brigade. He was jailed by the English four times, escaped once. After the 1921 treaty, by which Britain created the self-governing Irish Free State but retained jurisdiction over the six Protestant counties of Ulster, civil war flared between "pro-treaty" Irishmen and De Valera's followers, who cried that Ireland could not accept partition. Lemass, an officer on De Valera's staff, was captured...
...Valera, near-blind and doggedly indifferent to the country's worsening economic plight, was persuaded by his own Fianna Fail Party to step aside for Lemass and run for the presidency. His successor, after 19 years as Minister of Commerce and Industry, was passionately convinced that Ireland's timorous protectionism could only lead to national extinction. As Fianna Fail's new leader, Lemass was the antithesis of all the old fire-breathing heroes, talked trade and tariffs to the voters in intense, rapid-fire sentences that many found hard to follow. "That Lemass!" snorted one dubious Dublin...
What Sean Lemass wanted most was to lure foreign investors over O'Connell Bridge. The new Prime Minister sent blarney-blessed salesmen around the world persuading foreign industries to set up plants in Ireland. They offered one of the few labor surpluses in all Europe, liberal grants for equipment and construction, and additional cash to companies that would build plants and train workers in Ireland's pinched northwest and south...
Four Rs. Today's expansion would not have been possible if Sean Lemass had not started laying the groundwork long ago. Lemass is the great-grandson of a hatter who landed in Dublin in 1820. A young-appearing 63, he is by age, if not by political style, a member of the generation that freed Ireland and has ruled it ever since. At school, he learned his four Rs-in the Dublin of 50 years ago, revolution was part of the curriculum-and by the age of 14 had joined the Republican Na Fianna Eireann, a sort...
Though he never returned to prison after his release in 1923, four-time Loser Lemass was plainly a poor matrimonial risk. When he started courting pretty, vivacious Kathleen Hughes, he had the added disadvantage of having to placate her father, a Dublin carpenter and an Anglophile. He warned his daughter: "That boy is always on the run; he'll never be able to make a home for you." Kathleen decided to risk it anyway. They were married in 1924, have a son Noel, who is a Member of Parliament, and three daughters (the eldest, Maureen, is married to Charles...