Canadian prime minister's grandfather was one of the first men to join gardaí
Jim Herlihy, a former garda who has written many groundbreaking books on that force and its predecessor the RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary), said his research shows Canadian PM Mark Carney's grandfather, Robert, was born in Aille, Aughagower, Co Mayo on June 12, 1902, and that had joined the Garda at the age of 19.
'He was the 87th man to join the then 'civic guards' when he signed on in February 1922,' Mr Herlihy said. Robert was the son of Patrick Carney (1859-1938) and Bridget Moran (1856-1911) who lived in Aughagower.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Mayo connections are extremely solid. File photo: Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP
'Robert emigrated from Belfast to Quebec, Canada on the Canadian Pacific ship 'Montnairn' (Ticket no.16356) on July 18, 1925,' Mr Herlihy said.
HISTORY HUB
If you are interested in this article then no doubt you will enjoy exploring the various history collections and content in our history hub. Check it out HERE and happy reading
Robert married firstly Eleanor Moran (1894-1961) from Mace, Westport, Co Mayo on April 28, 1926, in Vancouver. His second marriage was to Edith Palfreyman (1906-1984) also in Vancouver. She was also from Westport.
Mr Herlihy's research shows Robert was listed as a 'Steam Railway Policeman' in Vancouver 1931 Census and he then went on to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, more famously known as 'The Mounties'.
Robert Carney's name at the bottom of the passenger list for the Canadian Pacific ship 'Montnairn' (Ticket no.16356) on July 18, 1925.
'Robert died on December 4, 1977 in Vancouver and is buried in the city's Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Cemetery and his son, Robert James Martin Carney, (Nov 3, 1933 – Dec 9, 2009) was Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's father,' Mr Herlihy added.
Mr Herlihy revealed some years ago who instigated the infamous 1920 'Burning of Cork' which at the time is estimated to have caused £2m worth of damage and put 2,000 people out of jobs.
He reviewed letters written by British cadet officer Charlie Schulze, in which he confirmed that he had led his colleagues in K Company to set fire to buildings in retaliation for an earlier IRA ambush on 20 British Auxiliaries at Dillon's Cross.
Ironically, Schulze's father had fought for the Germans against the British in the First World War.
Garda Robert Carney's grave.
Mark Carney's Mayo connections are extremely solid and he's the first cousin of Pat Carney, father of Tom Carney, who operates Carney's Quarry in Aughagower. Mr Carney has never visited Aghagower, although his father did around 40 years ago.
But it's hoped that the new Canadian PM will make an official visit there in due course. A number of previous American presidents with Irish roots have 'come home' to see their ancestral past.
They include John F Kennedy (1963 to ancestral home in New Ross, Co Wexford); Richard Nixon (1970 to Timahoe, Co Laois); Ronald Reagan (1984 to Ballyporeen, Co Tipperary); Barack Obama (2011 to Moneygall, Co Offaly) and most recently Joe Biden (April 2023 who has relatives, the Blewitts from Co Mayo and Finnegans from Co Louth).
It is yet unclear if Mr Carney will attend the 40th anniversary of the Air India disaster which claimed the lives of all 329 passengers and crew onboard when a bomb exploded on the aircraft off the Cork coast.
However, he is expected to be invited to the special commemoration by Irish authorities which will take place on June 23 at a memorial listing all the dead at Ahakista, which is the nearest point in West Cork to the crash site. The Boeing 747 was blown up by Sikh separatists as it was travelling from Canada to Delhi, India.
In 2005, then Canadian prime minister Paul Martin attended the annual memorial service in Ahakista. The same day, his country declared June 23 would be recoginised as Canada's National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism.
Read More
Clodagh Finn: Lessons in the extraordinary power of forgiveness
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Irish Examiner view: We need more gardaí but facial recognition could help the force do its job
Many claims are made to support the widespread introduction of facial recognition technology (FRT). Mostly they relate to policing and the efficiencies which could be gained in an era when An Garda Síochána continuously finds it difficult to fill vacancies. This was underlined this week when it was revealed that 7,000 fewer drug searches were carried out last year, compared to 2022. They dropped 15% for the entire country, but by as much as 43% in Clare/Tipperary and 34% in Cork City. If this is a consequence, as officers maintain, of fewer gardaí 'on the streets' then what will happen when almost 1,900 members of the force become eligible to retire over the next three years? There is an inexorable logic to future demands that this shortfall be managed, in part, by more widespread use of technology. Unfortunately, that runs directly into mounting worries about civil liberties and the rights of ordinary citizens to pursue legitimate interests free from unjustified official intrusion and oversight. Politicians recognise the dangers of being portrayed as agents of some form of deep state. They have been slow to introduce body cameras for guards and our government is taking baby steps on plans for incorporation of real-time facial recognition technology into next gen surveillance techniques. Justice minister Jim O'Callaghan has said a bill currently before the Dáil will not provide for the use of real-time FRT but its future deployment has not been ruled out in cases of terrorism, national security, and missing persons 'with strict safeguards'. This would have to be considered for inclusion in any subsequent bill. Live facial recognition technology uses video footage of crowds passing a camera and automatically compares their images against a police database of people on a 'watch list'. Senior officers will, no doubt, be keenly observing what happens next door. The UK, along with Germany, is already Europe's leading exponent of CCTV with more than 5m units in position compared to the few thousand we have in Ireland. Now the Metropolitan Police, the UK's largest force, is set to double its use of live facial recognition to up to 10 deployments every week. It justifies the move as part of a restructuring to offset the loss of 1,400 officers and 300 staff in a budgetary crisis. Its new tactics will be implemented at the sometimes tempestuous Notting Hill Carnival at the end of this month. The Met's commissioner, Mark Rowley, says: It's a fantastic piece of technology. It's very responsibly used, and that's why most of the public support it. The problem for civil liberties campaigners resides in the last line of that quote. The majority of citizens don't like society being under-policed, something which they equate with criminals being given an easy run and producing the kind of gloomy results contained in the recent drug search statistics. Last year, British police scanned some 4.7m faces using the technology, more than double the figure for 2023. Most senior officers believe the cameras are on their way to becoming 'commonplace' in England and Wales. The challenge for our society is to ensure the law on FRT, and any protection it contains for the rights of citizens, does not get outpaced by its use. Crimefighting success in nearby jurisdictions is likely to increase clamour for its deployment. When happiness is the best revenge The tariffs announced on Friday for 69 trading partners of the US — ranging from 41% for Syria to 10% for the UK — have all the hallmarks of a running joke. But a joke of the worst possible kind, one which has gone on too long. Shoppers enjoying a hula hoop demonstration in Cork in the run-up to Christmas, 1958. Joan Anderson, who sparked the hula hoop craze in the US died this week aged 101. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive It would be easy to complain this morning but, to draw a lesson from Monty Python, it is better to look on the bright side of life. And there is plenty there to lighten our load. American scientists have just confirmed that the world's longest streak of lightning — a 'megaflash' — covered more than 500 miles, from Texas to the outskirts of Kansas City. Meanwhile a holidaymaker rockpooling on South Uist in the Outer Hebrides has rediscovered a species of jellyfish, Depastrum cyathiforme, thought to have been extinct for 50 years. If both these reports carry a whiff of what used to known in newsrooms as 'the silly season', then we commend the heartwarming story following the death of the Australian woman who brought the concept of the hula hoop to the US, igniting one of the biggest crazes of the previous century. Joan Anderson, who died this week aged 101, failed to gain financially from a fad which had hundreds of millions of participants. She filed a lawsuit against the toy company which exploited her idea and eventually settled for minor compensation. But, in a message we might all usefully reflect on in 2025, Joan said: 'Why be angry with something you can't change? The world isn't fair but life goes on. 'I had a great life. My husband lived to be 87 and we had 63 wonderful years together. 'Happiness is the best revenge.' What's your view on this issue? You can tell us here Last supper for Gregg Wallace 'Who's the Daddy?' It's just the sort of slang phrase you can imagine being used by Gregg Wallace at the height of his laddish popularity as a TV personality, something that viewers will be able to experience for conceivably the last time starting next week. Allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour and language were made against presenter Gregg Wallace after the forthcoming MasterChef series was recorded. Picture: BBC/PA It's certainly an adequate description of MasterChef, which in its various iterations, can be viewed as the durable forerunner of international format programming. From its launch in 1990, under the rather different stewardship of Loyd Grossman, it has been mimicked by a number of hugely successful shows all utilising a comfortingly predictable participatory and voyeuristic formula. What is common to all these programmes is that they contain lesser or greater amounts of humiliation for the contestants and the occasional soupcon of cruelty, presumably just enough to meet modern tastes without, showrunners hope, tipping over into something darker. The global MasterChef franchise has been better than most at attracting interest, watched by hundreds of millions worldwide. The upcoming series, filmed last year and which will begin on BBC One next Wednesday, was produced before allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour and language were made against Wallace. His co-presenter John Torode was accused of making a racist comment — euphemistically known as 'the N-word' — at a social gathering more than five years ago. He says he has no recollection of doing so. After an independent review by the Lewis Silkin legal practice, which also has offices in Dublin and Belfast, Torode was told that his contract with the BBC would not be renewed. The Silkin team upheld 45 allegations against Wallace including claims of inappropriate sexual language and one incident of unwelcome physical contact over a 17-year-timeline. The decision on whether to air this latest series featuring the two sacked presenters has been fraught. It has been on hold since the accusations emerged with the BBC deciding it should go ahead after most of the contestants supported its broadcast. John Torode and Gregg Wallace. The decision on whether to air the already-recorded latest series of MasterChef featuring the two sacked presenters has been fraught. File picture: PA/BBC/Shine TV Most, but not all. One participant wanted the whole show canned, and has now been edited out of the final version. 'For me, it's about the enabling environment,' she said. 'It's that complicity. Those individual powerful men do not [act] in isolation. There is an enabling environment, turning a blind eye ... it's about years of these institutions not being accountable.' Sincere though these expressions are, based on the evidence this seems extreme. All potential viewers have the sanction of the on-off button. How many use it is likely to determine whether we get to see the Celebrity MasterChef series and the Christmas special. Wallace looks to be a serious loser. His access to international networks is being replaced by his reported plan to launch a private chat room (€13.50 a month) for men over the age of 50. 'Real talk, real support — hosted by Gregg Wallace. Fitness, food, lifestyle, laughs. Sign up below and pop in to say hello' — says the blurb. It sounds a more measured approach than one of his responses to complaints made against him. On that occasion, ignoring the dictum that, when you are in a hole, you should stop digging, he hit out at 'middle class women of a certain age'. Perhaps this is a lesson learned. Perhaps chippy masculinity will come back into fashion. But that is probably not the way to bet.
The Journal
4 hours ago
- The Journal
Tánaiste says any gardaí showing 'brazen' disregard for roads policing 'letting colleagues down'
ANY GARDAÍ WHO have shown a 'brazen' disregard for roads policing are 'seriously letting their colleagues down', Tánaiste Simon Harris has said. The Fine Gael leader was responding to comments by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris, about a report that found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for roads policing duties while they knew their actions were being reviewed. The Journal / YouTube It comes amid a focus on road safety in Ireland, with the Government introducing new speed laws and after the Garda Commissioner mandated that frontline gardaí dedicate 30 minutes of road policing duties per shift. Simon Harris said he did not want to 'tar any one group with one brush', and said he has the utmost respect for gardaí. 'Indeed, it's not that long since we were at a funeral of a member of An Garda Síochána killed while on road traffic policing duties,' he said at Government Buildings. 'Having said that, I am concerned with what I've heard, and I'd like to be in a position to read it. So I think it's important that what the commissioner said he intends to do does happen, that he publishes the report so that we can actually see this and analyse it directly. 'Because any member of An Garda Siochana who is acting in the way that the commissioner outlined is seriously letting their colleagues down in the first instance, colleagues who work every day to keep us safe and would absolutely be undermining our road safety efforts in this country. 'There are far too many empty seats at far too many kitchen tables in Ireland. We've worked extremely hard as a country, I don't just mean as a government, as a country, to improve road safety over many years. 'That progress had stalled in recent years and indeed we'd seen a negative trend, and this is disappointing and concerning. 'But I think it's important that we have the opportunity to see the report, rather than to comment on a comment about the report.' Advertisement Asked if he was surprised that a member of government had not seen the report, considering the policing authority had seen the report in June, he said: 'I am somewhat, but I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this with colleagues in government yet, and I'd obviously like to discuss it in the first instance with the Minister of Justice.' Sean Canney, a junior minister with responsibility for road safety, said the reported findings were 'shocking' and 'serious'. 'There's no point in us bringing in laws, reducing speed limits, doing all of this kind of thing, if we don't have a functional enforcement section within the Gardaí,' he said on RTE Radio. Canney said his thoughts were with the families of the 95 people who had died on Irish roads so far this year. He said he had not read the report from consultancy firm Crowe, which has carried out investigations on behalf of An Garda Síochána previously, but planned to meet Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan and both the outgoing and incoming Garda commissioners. 'I'll be talking to the commissioners to express my deep concern with what is in this report,' he said. He said the independent Crowe report was conducted while the reviewer was 'sitting in the car with a garda that wasn't doing his duty and didn't seem to have a problem with that'. 'So I think there is definitely a serious case to be answered here as quickly as possible.' Harris said he commissioned the examination after he received an anonymous report from a whistleblower. The chairwoman of the Policing and Community Safety Authority, Elaine Byrne, said the report was 'shocking' and found some gardaí showed a 'blatant disregard' for road policing while they knew their actions were being reviewed. 'They were openly hostile to doing their job,' she said, in what she described as a 'wake-up call' for An Garda Siochana. She also described an issue with fear among Garda managers of carrying out poor performance management, which she said Harris agreed was an issue.
Agriland
4 hours ago
- Agriland
Gardai Seek Car with Cloned Plates After Dowra Mart Burglary
Gardaí in Co. Cavan are looking for the occupants of a car which is believed to be driving on 'cloned' registration plates following a burglary at Dowra Mart in the county. The burglary occurred at around 6:20p.m on Wednesday last (July 16). Gardaí in the village of Blacklion are investigating, and are looking for four individuals who were in a blue Honda Civic hatchback. The car has a partial registration of 06-DL. This registration is understood to be cloned, an illegal offence in which the registration of one car is copied and placed on another car. Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact garda stations in Blacklion or Cavan town, or the Garda confidential line on 1800 666 111. The An Garda Síochána Cavan/Monaghan Facebook page posted about the incident, saying: "Gardaí in Blacklion are appealing for witnesses to a burglary at Dowra Mart, Dowra, Co. Cavan on July 16 2025 at [approximately] 6:20p.m. "Four occupants of a blue Honda Civic hatchback, partial reg 06-DL, which is believed to be on cloned plates, are being sought in connection with this incident," the post added. "Please contact Blacklion or Cavan Garda Stations with any information or the Garda confidential line [on] 1800 666 111," Gardaí said. In neighbouring Leitrim, Gardaí are investigating after 'tens of thousands' of euro worth of equipment was stolen from a farmyard, including a van, a quad trailer, a bowser power washer, and concrete tools. It is understood that the theft took place on a farmyard in the Ballinamore area of the county, not far from the border with Co. Cavan. According to information received by Agriland, the incident occurred 'in the early hours' of Tuesday (July 15) between midnight and 6:00a.m. A Renault Master van, with a registration of 161-D-1594, along with a quad trailer and several other items, were stolen.
