Latest news with #TheEmergency
The Irish Sun
18-07-2025
- General
- The Irish Sun
Mayo woman reveals simple key to ‘happy life' ahead of turning 102 this weekend after revealing biggest lifetime changes
ONE of Ireland's oldest women has revealed the secret to her "long happy life" ahead of turning 102 this weekend. Catherine Conway, a When Catherine was born, prohibition was still in full swing in the Catherine loves And she also revealed that her secret to living a long and happy life is simply "working hard". To celebrate the milestone of her 100th birthday Catherine had a large birthday party in a local hotel. READ MORE IN IRISH NEWS Around 150 people joined to celebrate with the beloved lady in Gullane's Hotel on the special day. In an interview with Midlands 103, Catherine reflected on the changes she has seen over her 102 years. In particular, the introduction of phones, computers and washing machines are the most significant changes she has noticed. She also believes that people, especially MOST READ IN THE IRISH SUN She said: "I think everybody seems to have too much, and the same goes for children. "They end up with far too many toys and presents and everything. Top 10 Birthday Freebies "We never had anything like that. If you got something small, you would be happy. Maybe we would get maybe an apple or an orange or something in our stocking at Christmas." Now she prepares to celebrate this milestone over the weekend with friends and family. Earlier this week Sarah Coyle, Ireland's "oldest person", died aged 108. Sarah died on Monday, ten days before what would have been her 109th birthday. She is said to have died peacefully, surrounded by her family. Sarah, who was born on July 24 1916, in Knockatomcoyle, Co. At the age of 17, she moved to In 1957, Sarah would lose her sight at the age of 40 following a head trauma. 'SHE LOVED THE SIMPLE THINGS' Speaking with He said, "She was great with her hands and was great at laying guide wires in the garden. She loved plants and colours, "She loved the simple things." He notes that his grandmother could recall the Second World War which at the time was called "The Emergency". And that she could even remember the the Black and Tans and had clear memories of them and their distinctive uniforms. 1 Catherine Conway revealed the top tip ahead of her birthday Credit: Supplied
Extra.ie
16-07-2025
- General
- Extra.ie
Ireland's 'oldest woman' dies just days before 109th birthday
A woman who is believed to have been Ireland's oldest person has died aged 108, her family has confirmed. Sarah Coyle died peacefully, surrounded by her family, at her home in Dublin yesterday evening (Tuesday), just ten days before her 109th birthday. Sarah (Byrne) was born on July 24th 1916 at Knockatomcoyle in County Wicklow where she was one of ten children, but she moved to Dublin at the age of 17 to work as a carer for an elderly lady in Foxrock, before moving to Drumcondra after she married Tom Coyle in 1950. Sarah Coyle. Speaking to RTE's Morning Ireland Radio programme, her grandson Thomas Galligan said his grandmother had a great attitude to life, and even though she lost her eyesight in an accident in 1957, she had a 'get on with it' way about her, which saw her adapt to life without her sight. Thomas Galligan said his grandmother had two young children to care for at the time of the accident and though she was blind as a result of a head injury, she had a very positive mindset and just got on with it. He also said his grandmother's advice to anyone hoping to live a long life, was not to hold grudges and drink lots of tea. Sarah Coyle often spoke of her life and her memories of seeing the 'Black and Tans' on the streets and remembers their very distinctive uniforms, and she also had clear memories of The Emergency (WWII) as it was called at the time, and the rationing of food that came with it. Sarah Coyle had a total of eight presidential medals, an honour received each year by people who reach the age of 100 and over. Sarah has one living sibling, a sister Lily who is 103 and lives in Birmingham. She is remembered fondly by her two children, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
RTÉ News
15-07-2025
- General
- RTÉ News
Woman believed to be Ireland's oldest person dies at 108
Sarah Coyle, the woman who is believed to have been Ireland's oldest person, has died at the age of 108, her family has confirmed. She died peacefully surrounded by her family yesterday evening, ten days before what would have been her 109th birthday. Ms Coyle was born on 24 July 1916 in Knockatomcoyle, Co Wicklow. She was one of ten children and grew up in Coolkenno in Co Wicklow, near Tullow in Co Carlow, before moving to Dublin at the age of 17. While in Dublin she cared for an elderly woman in Foxrock. She subsequently moved to Drumcondra after marrying Tom Coyle in 1950. Her husband died in 1986. She moved to Castleknock in west Dublin in later life where she lived with her daughter Marian Galligan. "She loved the simple things" Ms Coyle lost her sight in 1957 at the age of 40 following a trauma to her head. Her grandson Thomas Galligan explained that having been completely blind, Ms Coyle developed a great love of radio and loved listening to Liveline as well as Gay Byrne and Marian Finucane. Despite her blindness, Ms Coyle was also a keen gardener. "She was great with her hands and was great at laying guide wires in the garden. She loved plants and colours," he said. "She loved the simple things." Mr Galligan said that his grandmother remembered The Emergency and the time of rations that came with it. She also remembered the Black and Tans and had a clear memory of seeing their distinctive uniforms. Ms Coyle had a total of eight presidential medals, her grandson said, which are received each year by those who reach the age of 100 and over. She had two other siblings who also lived to over the age of 100; her brother Andy who died before Ms Coyle and her sister Lily who is 103 and lives in Birmingham.
Hindustan Times
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
BJP leader Kavinder Gupta new Lt Governor of Ladakh, Ghosh is Haryana governor
President Droupadi Murmu on Monday appointed BJP leader Kavinder Gupta, 65, a former deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, as the lieutenant governor of Ladakh BJP leader Kavinder Gupta, a former deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, is the new lieutenant governor of Ladakh, while (right) Ashim Kumar Ghosh, an academic and political thinker, has been appointed as the governor of Haryana. (File photos) The Rashtrapati Bhavan press communique said that the President of India has accepted the resignation of Brigadier (Dr) BD Mishra (retd) as the lieutenant governor of Union Territory of Ladakh. The President of India announced the appointment of Ashim Kumar Ghosh, a respected academic and political thinker, as the governor of Haryana. He succeeds Bandaru Dattatraya, 78, who had been serving as the governor since 2021. Former Union civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapati Raju is the new governor of Goa, succeeding PS Sreedharan Pillai. The appointments would take effect from the dates they assume charge of their respective offices, the release added. Gupta succeeds Brigadier Mishra, 85, who had been appointed lieutenant governor of Ladakh after accepting the resignation of RK Mathur on February 12, 2023. Mishra was previously the Arunachal Pradesh governor. On April 30, 2018, Gupta was appointed J&K deputy chief minister as a part of a cabinet reshuffle but he quit the post 51 days later on June 19 as the BJP pulled out from the alliance with the Mehbooba Mufti-led People's Democratic Party (PDP). On March 19, 2015, Gupta was elected Speaker of the assembly and became the first Bharatiya Janata Party leader to hold the post. He had defeated Raman Bhalla of the Congress to represent Gandhinagar assembly constituency in the 2014 assembly election. Earlier, he was elected mayor of the city of Jammu for a record three consecutive terms, from 2005-10. He served as the chief of the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha's Jammu and Kashmir unit from 1993-98 and was the secretary of the Punjab unit of the Vishva Hindu Parishad from 1978-79. A Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh member at the age of 13, he was jailed for 13 months during The Emergency.
Hindustan Times
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
How the Emergency changed Indian politics
No other single event in Indian post-independence history has had more dramatic political consequences in the immediate term, and led to deeper structural political shifts in the long term, than the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi exactly fifty years ago. Visitors at an exhibition organised to mark the 50th anniversary of the Emergency imposed in 1975 by then PM Indira Gandhi in New Delhi on June 25. (PTI) The years between 1975 and 1977 altered the citizen-State relationship, created a new political culture, and triggered radically different political alignments. The citizen-State dynamic At a conceptual level, think of how the Indian State was seen for most part since 1950 after the Constitution was promulgated. For citizens, the State was benign, an instrument of justice, a vehicle to protect fundamental rights, a structure for political self-expression of the collective, a democratic and pluralist platform, the culmination of the historic freedom struggle. To be sure, this was not a neat linear story. From the First Amendment that curtailed freedom of expression to the dismissal of elected governments starting from Kerala, from the brutal crackdown on challenges to State authority in the Northeast to the utter deprivation that marked the lives of the majority of citizens, the State didn't always meet the vision of the founders. But it was not until the Emergency that citizens saw the State's brutality and arbitrariness on scale. Suddenly, the Indian State could not be trusted to protect civil liberties; it was instead a threat to civil liberties. The political leadership could not be trusted to play by the rules of the democratic game; instead, the leadership itself could be a threat to the rules of the democratic game. The bureaucracy and judiciary and media could not be trusted to speak for the citizens against the State; these institutions could well turn against the citizens themselves. Public health was not about the well-being of families; instead, it was about recklessly ending the dreams of many to have families at all. The Emergency ended the almost instinctive faith that many citizens had in the State as an instrument of good, by making them realise that the State's character could well turn in an instance and become an instrument of darkness. Indian democracy and the political legitimacy of the Centre took a clear hit. And while it is hard to draw any causal linkage, and this is only speculative, it is worth pondering why was it that within a few years of the Emergency that India saw the most serious set of political-internal security crises simultaneously, from Punjab to Assam to Kashmir. It is also worth pondering why over the decades, the instinctive suspicion of the State and political leadership has only increased. Something did break in the 1970s. And there was no greater rupture than the Emergency. The political culture shift The Emergency also shaped Indian political culture, for good and bad. Indira Gandhi's 'high command' culture was already visible before 1975, but the Emergency marked the high point of centralized and authoritarian rule in India. It changed the incentives for those within the Congress. It was no longer enough to have been a freedom fighter or a Gandhian or even a Nehruvian. Unless one was a Indira sycophant, with complete loyalty to one person and her son, Sanjay, the driver of the Emergency, there was no future in the party. The period also showed how authoritarianism could persist without a major public backlash, especially when dissent was chained. Do note that Indira Gandhi called elections not because of external pressure but her own internal voice and assessment. All of these patterns -- of political parties turning to family fiefdoms, of political leaders centralizing all authority, of political authoritarianism going unchecked — would only grow in subsequent decades in different forms, even if the Emergency itself was not imposed again. And the reason no regime has dared impose an Emergency again is because this also marked the golden period of dissent. Thousands went to prisons. New solidarities were formed. New civil liberties organizations took roots. Gutsy journalists found new ways to communicate news of the demise of democracy to readers. A quiet churn happened beneath the calm. And eventually, the 1977 elections saw the defeat of Indira, the first time that the Congress was defeated since the first election in 1951, and the first time India would get to see a non-Congress coalition formation in power. This too showed something fundamental — and fundamentally heartening — about the resilience of Indian democracy. In a society as large, as diverse, as chaotic, citizens would not accept rule by fiat from the Centre, where order was prioritized at the cost of freedom and justice. Alignments and leadership But the most visible impact of the Emergency was in the nature of political alignments itself and the emergence of a new generation of leaders. Resistance to Indira had brought socialists and the Sangh together in the run-up to the Emergency itself. This was not new in itself, for these ideologically diverse formations had formed coalition governments in 1967. Jayaprakash Narayan's towering leadership was the glue as student movements arose in Bihar and Gujarat. But the Emergency created new bonds between those who were at the forefront of the cultural battles for Hindutva and those who were at the forefront of the social justice battles on the caste and class axis. Time spent together in movements and in prisons helped. For now, they had one common adversary: Indira's Congress. And when the elections were called, splinter formations from the Congress led by Morarji Desai, socialist formations led by Raj Narain and George Fernandes and young Turks such as Chandrashekhar, peasant formations led by Charan Singh, and most importantly perhaps, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh led by Nanaji Deshmukh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, came together to form the Janata Party to pose a unified challenge to the Congress. The last minute exit of the veteran Dalit leader, Jagjivan Ram, from the Congress infused additional energy in the anti-Indira camp. JP was too old and frail to provide effective everyday guidance but was the moral force behind the formation. For the Jana Sangh in particular to give up its own identity was a major decision given its roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, but it also meant getting legitimacy and recognition as a part of the wider opposition and accessing State power. For socialists to accept Jana Sangh colleagues may have been equally difficult, but it also meant access to the RSS's formidable organizational machinery and base that proved to be indispensable. The anti-Emergency struggle and the formation of the Janata revealed something that has persisted in Indian politics. When one force becomes dominant, ideologically disparate formations come together often to oppose it to introduce a balance in the polity. The Janata's surprise win was the biggest electoral surprise in Indian history, leading to Morarji Desai's elevation as the PM. And its biggest achievement was in restoring Indian democracy and constitutionalism. This was a formidable achievement in itself, which is not recognised adequately because of the short-lived nature of the Janata experiment. Internal factionalism and competing ambitions and egos marked the functioning of the party. This was often couched as ideological differences, with a strong push against 'dual membership' of those who had belonged to the Jana Sangh and owed their loyalty to the RSS but also were Janata leaders. Eventually, Indira Gandhi succeeded in playing on these internal rifts, propped up Charan Singh briefly as PM, before pulling the rug and returning to power in the next election. This too has been a recurring phenomena, of coalitions formed against one party unable to sustain positive governance and political programmes and overcome internal squabbles. But in this short period itself, from 1975 to 1977, think of the leaders who emerged. Narendra Modi cut his teeth in anti-Emergency politics. Arun Jaitley was Delhi University Student Union's star president who took on the regime. Lalu Prasad was the young rooted leader from Bihar, as were his friends turned foes, Sushil Modi and Nitish Kumar. Ram Vilas Paswan got elected to the Lok Sabha from Hajipur with a record margin, even as Sharad Yadav came to Parliament from Jabalpur. From DP Tripathi to Subramanian Swamy, leaders from the Left and Right stood up for political liberty and democracy. The fact that these leaders then went on to shape Indian politics in decisive ways and some continue to dominate it is a result of the Emergency. Indira Gandhi, triggered by an adverse judicial verdict and prodded on by her over-ambitious and entitled son, betrayed her party and her father's legacy as she trampled on Indian democracy that fateful night on June 25, 1975. But little would she have known that her midnight proclamation would reshape India's State-citizen relationship, political culture, political alignments and political leadership in such fundamental ways that it continues to define India fifty years later. That is the political legacy of the Emergency.
