It's About The Design, Stupid

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Cruise on a piece of Chicago history! Lake Michigan + Chicago River

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Chicago River Architecture Tour (90 minutes)
The most unique tour boat in chicago, housing a mini museum, fun for the kids, and a bar onboard!
See Stunning Fireworks over the Chicago Skyline
Tour Departure Location
Chicago Skyline Sail

Join the celebration with friends and family on this social fireworks cruise featuring City Winery‘s unique Chicago inspired wine selection. The Riverwalk Fireworks Cruise is aboard the Wendella LTD, Chicago Water Taxi’s flagship vessel. A fun, relaxing, informative boat tour along Chicago's beautiful waterways is the ultimate way to experience the city and leave a lasting impression on your group. Get up-close and personal every Wednesday and Saturday night on this epic Lake Michigan fireworks cruise. This family-friendly introduction to the Windy City's rich history and architectural heritage features highlights from Wendella's full-length architecture tours. Located on the bottom deck of our vessel is a climate controlled lounge with a limited selection of beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic).

Chicago River Architecture Tour (90 minutes)

It was a gorgeous summer late afternoon and the city was just sparkling. I thought the price was great for the experience. The Tall Ship Windy is a must thing to do at Navy Pier.

The most unique tour boat in chicago, housing a mini museum, fun for the kids, and a bar onboard!

• Wednesday departures are 2 hours.• Saturday departures are approximately 2.5 hours (depending on lock traffic). Our Skyline Lake Tour takes you on a loop around Lake Michigan, heading both north and south on the lake, you’ll see many of Chicago’s famous landmarks and the classic skyline vista. Take in the world-renowned architecture as our expert guides tell the story of 130 years of architectural innovation.

See Stunning Fireworks over the Chicago Skyline

Listen to seasonal music and celebrate the kick-off of the holiday season. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are available for purchase and Wendella will provide complimentary hot apple cider, hot cocoa, and sweets! Due to the timing of the cruise, you will not see the parade from the boat. History comes alive on this exciting Windy City boat tour.

Tour Departure Location

You get a nice view of the city and the crew is entertaining and knowledgeable. It was a very educational and relaxing seventy-five minutes. Join us at Paradise Adventures in Panama City Beach, Florida, where sun-kissed shores await. If you’re dreaming of a week-long yacht vacation, Charter Smarter in the Virgin Islands promises an unforgettable experience. For a full or half day on the water from St. Thomas and St. John in the US Virgin Islands, our team at Seas the Day Charters USVI is ready to make your dreams a reality.

Chicago Skyline Sail

Now in its 83rd season, Shoreline Sightseeing operates Chicago's largest and most diverse fleet of cruise boats and water taxis with 11 major tour vessels and 7 water taxis. Enjoy your favorite drink while gazing Chicago’s magnificent architecture and finish your cruise with fabulous light show, at Navy Pier. Our Skyline Lake Tours only depart from our Navy Pier dock at 600 E. From Navy Pier, you’ll head out on a majestic boat tour of Lake Michigan where you’ll be able to see Chicago’s renowned skyscrapers and landmarks light up.

Your boat includes:

On our boat, you’ll have the best seats in the city for the fantastic fireworks display. Join us for Chicago’s favorite free dazzling fireworks display Wednesday and Saturday nights from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend. I’m a life long Chicagoan and I brought my out of town relatives on this cruise and we all loved it!

Fireworks Cruise From Navy Pier Aboard Tall Ship Windy!

The crew is fantastic and the tour guide is hilarious. His sense of humor really sets this tour apart from the rest, while still offering interesting insights on the city’s unique skyline. I've set sail on Tall Ship Windy 4-5 times over the past few years, and it is always a good time.

There is something special about sailing in Chicago combined by kicking off your week and joining us for a 2-hour concert sail. This Navy Pier boat tour sails from 7pm-9pm every Monday this summer. Enjoy happy hour drink specials onboard this Navy Pier Boat Tour every night at 5pm and experience breathtaking views of the Chicago skyline from the water! It’s the perfect way to end your workday or kick off your weekend plans. Join us for a family-friendly fireworks cruise on the Chicago River!

Very friendly and funny staff and always a good time, with beautiful views of the city of Chicago. Highly recommend the 7pm sail to watch the sunset between the buildings. Fun and knowledgeable crew made the Windy the highlight of our Chicago visit. Order a cold drink from our bar and enjoy a thrilling fireworks performance as you sail along the stunning and iconic Chicago skyline during this special event sail.

Group discount rates are available for parties of 20 or more aboard any of our river cruises. Summer Fireworks Wednesdays (9PM) & Saturdays (10PM) | FREE Enjoy Chicago's beloved sky spectacle show every Wednesday night at 9pm and Saturday night at 10pm,... Feel the spirit of centuries past and hoist the sails as part of your Chicago boat excursion on Tall Ship Windy.

Sail into the night and embark on a two-hour party sail from Navy Pier; join us for Chicago’s only Pirates Pub. Sail onboard a 148-foot Tall Ship in the Windy City! This popular Chicago event is one you will not want to miss; it is unlike all other boat excursions in Chicago. Enjoy an onboard DJ and the wind in your hair as you dance the night away with the mesmerizing Chicago skyline as your backdrop. Sing along to traditional pirate tunes and your favorite party anthems while soaking in the breathtaking sights on Lake Michigan. On Wednesday and Saturday evenings, you can take our Skyline Lake Tour and end your visit with a front-row view of the Navy Pier fireworks.

The 8 Best Luxury Boat Rentals In Chicago - CS Modern Luxury

The 8 Best Luxury Boat Rentals In Chicago.

Posted: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

There is simply no better way to experience Chicago’s world-famous skyline than on a Windy City Boat Tour with Tall Ship Windy. No matter where your compass points, we’re here to create more unforgettable memories with you. For parties up to 170, we have fully-outfitted boats and onboard amenities to help you create a private event they’ll talk about for years to come.

If you’re looking for other ways to sail, we invite you to explore our other exciting locations! Tall Ship Windy is proud to be a part of the Amphitrite Digital family of companies. Starbucks Coffee, Twinings Tea, Coca-Cola soft drinks and lemonade are all complimentary.

Enjoy an educational adventure for curious minds of all ages with the backdrop of the iconic Chicago skyline always in view. Led by our crew-educators, experience a hands-on sailing excursion in Chicago aboard Windy. For the best Chicago sunset, visitors and residents alike, join us aboard the 148′ Tall Ship Windy – the official ambassador for the City of Chicago. Departing from Navy Pier daily, you will enjoy a spectacular sailing cruise and enjoy the breathtaking moments as the sun sets gently behind the Chicago Skyline.

There is also a restroom available on board. There is no narration, but light music for you to enjoy as the vessel cruises up and down the Chicago River. Join Chicago Water Taxi on Wednesday and Saturday nights as we depart from the Riverwalk to view the City’s magnificent fireworks display. Our boat tours are both fun and educational, which makes them the perfect way to see Lake Michigan. Tall Ship Windy offers the most spectacular Chicago fireworks cruises during the summer.

Chicago's Original Architecture Tour®

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Wendella Tours & Cruises
Chicago Line Cruises
Explore Chicago Sailing Special Events
SAIL WITH US!
The most unique tour boat in chicago, housing a mini museum, fun for the kids, and a bar onboard!

Memorial Day Weekend in Chicago Fireworks, Things to Do, Events & Parades - Choose Chicago

Memorial Day Weekend in Chicago Fireworks, Things to Do, Events & Parades.

Posted: Mon, 15 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Wendella Tours & Cruises

Chicago Line Cruises

Explore Chicago Sailing Special Events

SAIL WITH US!

Your boat includes:

We’re already counting down the days until we can set sail with you again aboard Tall Ship Windy in 2024. Tall Ship Windy offers an unforgettable sailing experience. Explore Chicago’s Skyline and choose from Sunset Sails, Skyline Sails and Educational Sails. The journey begins at the Chicago Riverwalk, cruises up and down the main branch of the Chicago River, and ends with a spectacular view of the Chicago Fireworks as seen from the Chicago River. AMDI anticipates a public offering price between $3.50 to $4.50.

New Year's Eve Premier Plus Dinner Cruise on the Chicago River 12/31/2023 - Choose Chicago

New Year's Eve Premier Plus Dinner Cruise on the Chicago River 12/31/2023.

Posted: Sun, 31 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Monday, April 1, 2024

Conor Cruise OBrien Biography, Books, & Facts

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Police Powers
Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at 91; Irish author became a prominent diplomat
More From the Los Angeles Times
Tony Felloni, notorious Dublin heroin dealer, dies suddenly aged 81
Israeli strikes intensify across Gaza as fresh evacuations ordered in north of enclave
Ireland's Fissures, and My Family's

(When you heard that distinctive Irish voice squeakily address you as "party comrade", it was usually time to go home.) Few things afforded me greater pleasure than helping to get Conor named Commentator of the Year in the 1983 What The Papers Say awards. This coincided, though I did not realise it at the time, with the final push by Lonrho to get the paper's most illustrious contributor removed from any connection with the Observer - a demand which I shall always believe that the entire staff, from the editor downwards, should have combined to resist. Conor's enforced departure was dressed up as having something to do with his acceptance of a visiting professorship at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire - and face, if not pride, was thereby preserved. A government announcement Thursday did not give the cause of death, although Cruise O'Brien had faded from public life since suffering a stroke in 1998 and several broken bones from a fall in 2007. 94 Power, ‘Revisionist nationalism's consolidation, republicanism's marginalization, and the peace process’, p. 90.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 1917-2008 The Chicago Blog - University of Chicago

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 1917-2008 The Chicago Blog.

Posted: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Police Powers

Your email address will be used in order to notify you when your comment has been reviewed by the moderator and in case the author(s) of the article or the moderator need to contact you directly. See also Ivory, ‘Revisions in nationalist discourse among Irish political parties’, pp 89–90. 61 O'Brien, ‘Report of party delegation to Six Counties and the British Labour Party – 16/19 August 1969’. Elements within the Belfast Citizens’ Defence Committees would later form part of the Central Defence Committees, which would go on to form the nucleus of the P.I.R.A. See Kelly, ‘A failed political entity’, p. 65. His dramatic writings include King Herod explains (1968), in which Hilton Edwards (qv) played Herod at the Gate theatre in 1971; Murderous angels (1968), on the prelude to Katanga; and unpublished screenplays on Parnell and Michael Collins (qv). He was pro-chancellor of the University of Dublin (1972–94), a member of the RIA, and was awarded numerous honorary doctorates, including from QUB in 1984.

Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at 91; Irish author became a prominent diplomat

Two additional notable incidents affected Cruise O'Brien's career as minister, besides his support for broadcasting censorship. In 1962, Cruise O'Brien married the Irish-language writer and poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi in a Roman Catholic church. Cruise O'Brien's divorce, though contrary to Roman Catholic teaching, was not an issue because that church did not recognise the validity of his 1939 civil wedding.

Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien dies - SFGATE

Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien dies.

Posted: Sun, 21 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT [source]

More From the Los Angeles Times

Cruise O'Brien accused a combination of British, French and white Rhodesian elements of attempting to partition off Katanga as a pro-Western client state. He used military force to oppose a combination of western mercenaries and Katangan forces. Days after he green-lighted the aggression, as the Siege of Jadotville raged, Hammarskjöld was killed in a plane crash, leaving Cruise O'Brien to carry the can. He was swiftly let go by the UN, at the request of the Irish government, and he resigned from the diplomatic corps. Cruise O'Brien's version of events, set out in his 1962 book To Katanga and Back, has been dismissed as highly selective and self-serving, and while it deliberately excluded crucial items, recent evidence from the UN archives suggests Cruise O'Brien was acting with the express approval of Hammarskjöld.

Like Charles Haughey, who would become his bête noire in later life, Cruise O'Brien was a star scholar who breezed through academic life nearly always at the top of the class. The Belgians turned the Congo into a real-life hell on Earth, and when they pulled out in 1960, they left behind an unholy mess which the Irish, wearing their UN berets alongside a force of Swedes, were supposed to somehow sort out. Over a five-year period some 6,000 Irish soldiers served in the Congo, with 26 of them killed in action. Conor Cruise was posted to the Congo in 1961 as the special representative of the United Nations' charismatic Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. He was still in his early forties and he already had a glittering career behind him. Contributor of articles to periodicals, including Atlantic, Nation, New Statesman, and Saturday Review.

Holy War Against India

O'Brien recognised that in the post-Morthor furore he should leave his assignment in Élisabethville so as not to jeopardise the prospects of reconciliation, but wanted to be assigned to Léopoldville as the senior political adviser to the ONUC chief of civilian operations rather than be reassigned to a role in New York. He left for New York on 16 November, leaving Máire MacEntee in Élisabethville, where she had joined him a couple of weeks previously. At the security council, the Belgian foreign minister Paul Henri Spaak denounced O'Brien for having pursued 'a personal policy', and 'grossly exceeded instructions'. Paradoxically, this fortified O'Brien's position; however, it was almost immediately destabilised by what transpired in Élisabethville on 28 November. Katangese paracommandos apprehended a party en route to a reception in honour of US Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, a backer of Tshombe.

He condemned killing and maiming conducted by both sides and, while serving in the mid-1970s as minister overseeing Irish broadcasting outlets, he banned Irish Republican Army statements from Irish radio and television. Stocky, urbane and outspoken, “The Cruiser” as he was known to friends, wrote influential books and essays on many subjects; his works include “The Great Melody,” a 1981 biography of British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, and “The Siege,” a 1986 history of Israel and Zionism. One of Conor Cruise O'Brien's favourite anecdotes arose from the time some 30 years ago when he was being courted by the Observer to become its editor-in-chief. The message had been passed to him that he should present himself at a distinctly smart block of flats opposite Broadcasting House in Portland Place. There he was to be interviewed by, among others, the former chairman of the paper, the ubiquitous lawyer Arnold Goodman.

Israeli strikes intensify across Gaza as fresh evacuations ordered in north of enclave

Shortly before Cruise O'Brien arrived, the crisis in the region was made far worse after the murder of the newly independent Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. The rulers of one province, Katanga, opted to secede from the newly formed Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although they had officially abandoned their old colony, the Belgians were still anxious to cash in on the great natural resources of the country, and Katanga was a land rich in those resources. It is one of history's great ironies that thousands of Irishmen marched off to the trenches of the Great War on a mission to save "little Catholic Belgium" from German oppression, at a time when Belgium, as colonial master of the Congo basin since the 1880s, was presiding over one of the most brutal and genocidal regimes the world has ever seen. New Republic, September 11, 1965; September 7, 1968; March 3, 1986; September 12, 1988; March 10, 1997, Sean Wilentz, review of The Long Affair, p. 32. Nation, December 20, 1965, p. 502; February 23, 1970; March 27, 1972; March 12, 1973; May 26, 1997, Benjamin Schwartz, review of The Long Affair, p. 29.

Towards the end of his life his principal journalistic outlet was the Sunday Independent. Professionally he was once again with the loss of his dáil seat on the qui vive. Late in 1977 he embarked on an extended African trip for the Observer, and had a memorable encounter with the Zimbabwean revolutionary Robert Mugabe, who asked him if he supported freedom fighters in his own country. O'Brien replied that if Mugabe meant the Provisional IRA, he had not supported them but favoured their suppression by all lawful means. Mr Mugabe smiled as he spoke.' Mugabe was incensed on the publication of O'Brien's account in January 1978.

After his stint as editor-in-chief of the Observer, O'Brien earned his living by his journalistic writing, by contributions to international reviews and by his books, and had a series of visiting lectureships in American academic institutions. Though immersed in its public life in a period of bracing political and artistic vibrancy, the O'Briens were never quite settled in New York. With the adoption of Patrick, Whitewater, the house which O'Brien had purchased in 1950 on the summit of Howth, overlooking the Baily lighthouse, with the glittering sweep of Dublin bay to the right, once more beckoned.

Born in Dublin in 1917, Mr Cruise O'Brien was one of the leading intellectual lights of the Labour Party during the 1960s, following a career as a civil servant in the Department of Finance and later the Department of External Affairs. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, both of whom figured largely in O’Brien’s career and propelled him to diplomatic roles after Ireland’s admission to the United Nations in 1955. It was a shabby episode in the history of the Observer and no one surviving from that time can afford to look back without a twinge of guilt.

His involvement on the anti-partition side ceased with his appointment to the Irish embassy in Paris, where he was counsellor (1955–6). In 1969, as a Labor candidate, he won a seat in Ireland’s Parliament representing Dublin Northeast. Regarded as left-wing by Irish voters, he soon surprised many of his supporters with the provocative and highly influential book “States of Ireland” (1972), in which he attacked what he saw as the myths of the Republican movement and excoriated the nationalist dream as sectarian and colonialist. As minister of posts and telegraphs in the coalition government that formed in 1973, he banned Sinn Fein from the airwaves.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Former minister and journalist Conor Cruise O'Brien dies

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Conor Cruise O'Brien, 91, Irish diplomat and writer; Paul Weyrich, conservative strategist
Opposition to the Vietnam War
Holy War Against India
Early life

O'Brien was a maverick, both as a writer and politician, and to accuse him of inconsistency is beside the point. Some shrewd analysts viewed him as a fine intellectual led astray into public life by ambition and the desire to prove himself a man of action. Others saw him as a courageous radical nonconformist who challenged the forces of obscurantism. It is certainly arguable that, like Burke, he began as a Whig radical and ended up as almost a reactionary. The warring aspects of his personality partly had their roots in old Parnellite and home rule politics, which personalised and sometimes embittered public debate, partly in the example of the generation of French intellectuals that emerged after the second world war, partly in the liberal leftism of the 1950s, and partly in 1960s protest politics. But the crucible of all these was his own mercurial, restless personality and intellectual brilliance, backed by a historian's sense of history and the born journalist's flair for being in the wrong place at the right time.

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The issue on this occasion was O'Brien's attitude to possible British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. Following the burning of the British embassy in Dublin, on 2 February 1972, he claimed that ‘I reverted to my former view, which has been my view ever since’. British withdrawal, he maintained, would lead to ‘full scale civil war’.Footnote 134 O'Brien held firm to this position for the remainder of his life. Politically his stance to the left of mainstream liberal intellectuals reflected the complex interrelationship of the unfolding of his own thinking to the international politics of the 1960s. In his essay 'Contemporary forms of imperialism', published in autumn 1965 in the review Studies on the Left, he attacked neo-colonialism not as driven by economic interests, but as a modern form of racially premised domination, promoted through ideas of the containment of communism. In the spring of 1966 he condemned indiscriminate anti-communism in an essay entitled 'The counterrevolutionary reflex'.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 91, Irish diplomat and writer; Paul Weyrich, conservative strategist

A UN section was being constituted in anticipation of Ireland's long-pursued membership of the UN, which was to take place on 14 December 1955. At the general election of March 1957, Fianna Fáil returned to power, and Aiken to External Affairs. Aiken was disposed to take a more independent line, and O'Brien and other younger colleagues favoured a non-aligned approach on the Swedish model (Katanga, 14–15). O'Brien advised that the litmus test was the vote in favour of a discussion on the representation of China, which Aiken agreed to support.

Opposition to the Vietnam War

Changing the Guard Conor Cruise O'Brien - The New York Review of Books

Changing the Guard Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Posted: Sat, 19 Dec 2015 23:16:31 GMT [source]

At the start of the 1960s, the Irish Army had not been involved in any conflict since the Civil War of nearly four decades earlier. The newly installed government of Taoiseach Seán Lemass decided that it was time for this state to start taking an active role in international affairs. If Lemass and his cabinet had known what awaited their troops in central Africa, they might have had second thoughts. Very much the flail of the IRA (and of Charles Haughey, subsequently a Fianna Fáil taoiseach), his opposition to any notion of a united Ireland began to attract a good deal of attention in mainland Britain. It was, appropriately, at the annual conference of the British-Irish Association, held in Oxford in September 1977, where the idea first took root in the mind of the Observer's former editor, David Astor, that Conor's academic and public distinction should be harnessed to the service of his old paper. He was opposed to the 1992 Maastricht treaty, and to projects of political union in Europe, more as a realist diplomat of the old school than on ideological grounds.

Ireland's Fissures, and My Family's

Like his friend Michael O'Leary he never truly ceased to be of the Labour party ('Saints, sinners and sincerity', Magill (July 1981)), though his attacks on Dick Spring's driving forward of the peace process were unsparing. O'Brien was the Labour party spokesman on foreign affairs and Northern Ireland, and part of a Labour delegation that went to the North in August, meeting as he later noted only nationalist representatives. He rapidly fell out with Noel Browne and David Thornley (qv); his relations with his third roommate in Leinster House, Justin Keating (qv), took longer to sour. Sustained loyally by Corish, Frank Cluskey (qv) and Michael O'Leary (qv), he continued to visit Northern Ireland, and on 12 August 1970 was beaten up at an Apprentice Boys' rally at St Columb's Park in Derry. Born in Dublin on 3 November 1917, O'Brien's career encompassed roles in the Irish civil service and then the UN, where he came to the attention of the secretary general, Dag Hammarskjold, who tasked him with leading the peace keeping operation in the Congo in 1960. O'Brien, who led the United Nations operations in the Congo in 1960, was Ireland's minister for posts and telegraphs in the mid-1970s and who became editor-in-chief of the Observer newspaper in 1979 for three years, died last night.

Holy War Against India

Mr. O’Brien departed for the more welcoming environment of N.Y.U., to lecture on literature and social issues. Conor Cruise O’Brien, an Irish diplomat, politician, man of letters and public intellectual who staked out an independent position for Ireland in the United Nations and, despite his Roman Catholic origins, championed the rights of Protestants in Northern Ireland, died Thursday. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Although his father was an agnostic, O'Brien's first school was Muckross college, a Catholic convent school.

Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at 91; Irish author became a prominent diplomat

He was active in the college debating society, edited the college magazine, and joined the Fabian society and the Labour party. The UN was supposed to provide a neutral buffer, but archive records released many years later show that the head of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, was fiercely pro-Western/anti-Communist and covertly gave his full backing to UN aggression towards the breakaway Katangans. Swede Hammarskjöld's top man on the ground was Ireland's rising star of the diplomatic corps, Conor Cruise O'Brien, who was left, after his boss was killed during the crisis, to carry the can for a blot on the copybooks of both Ireland and the UN. When Belgium officially relinquished its colony in 1960, it left behind a legacy of slavery and plunder.

O'Brien had already written to Aiken on 25 November advising that he had reluctantly come to the conclusion that he could no longer usefully represent the UN in Katanga, and if requested would be happy to resume service in the Department of External Affairs. In the wake of the episode in Élisabethville, it was conveyed to Aiken that, if O'Brien was not recalled to the department, Hammarskjöld's successor, U Thant, would call for his resignation. On 1 December both O'Brien and MacEntee, independently of each other, resigned from the department (Katanga, 315–29; Kennedy and Magennis, 183–8). He issued a statement the same day explaining why he was resigning to the New York Times and to the Observer, and gave a press conference on 4 December. In March 1961 the secretary general of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld, first asked the Irish government to release O'Brien for service with the UN as its representative in Élisabethville (Lubumbashi).

Conor Cruise O'Brien: The Irishman at heart of Congo siege

In the aftermath, as the United Nations hastily repudiated the mission, Mr. O’Brien took the fall and left the world body. He recounted his version of events in “To Katanga and Back” (1962) and later wrote “Murderous Angels,” a play about Hammarskjold and Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s murdered premier, which was produced in Los Angeles and New York in 1970. With the Troubles raging in the North, his position made him a hate figure for many Irish, as did his later opposition to the peace effort aimed at bringing Sinn Fein into the government of Northern Ireland. In one, he was kicked by a policeman, and was in considerable pain for days afterwards. During this period, his play Murderous Angels was staged in Los Angeles and later had a brief run in New York – allegedly after black militants had brought pressure on some of the actors to pull out. He had become a hot potato, and the controversy continued when he later published his version of events in the book To Katanga and Back.

Cruise O'Brien was particularly vocal in opposition to partition during the 1940s and 1950s, as part of his official duties. Cruise O'Brien's university education led to a career in the public service, most notably in the Department of External Affairs. He achieved distinction as managing director of the state-run Irish News Agency and later as part of the fledgling Irish delegation to the United Nations. He later claimed he was something of an anomalous iconoclast in post-1922 Irish politics, particularly in the context of Fianna Fáil governments under Éamon de Valera.

Following his resignation, O'Brien made public his intention to publish a book about the difficulties he had encountered in the service of the U.N. Shortly thereafter, he received a letter from then acting Secretary-General U Thant advising him that unauthorized disclosure of U.N. Thant's letter serves as the preface of To Katanga and Back, an autobiographical narrative of the crisis in the Congo, which O'Brien published in 1963 despite U.N. In 1974–5, further tensions surfaced between O'Brien and his cabinet colleagues, as well as within the Labour Party, as a result of O'Brien's outspoken views on Northern Ireland. A ‘demand for it and insistence that it is on its way’, he protested, ‘actually mitigate against progress towards peace and reconciliation in the here and now’.Footnote 131 By the summer of 1975, O'Brien came into renewed conflict with some of his cabinet colleagues — again FitzGerald was his main antagonist.

Conor Cruise O'Brien: Irish intellectual with a long career as - The Independent

Conor Cruise O'Brien: Irish intellectual with a long career as.

Posted: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:00:00 GMT [source]

When called upon, he would put down his pen and enter the fray, more often than not emerging bruised and bloodied. However, the Congo chapter had earned him at least one admirer – President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, who invited him to become vice-chancellor of the university there. For a time this relationship went well, but the two drifted apart and O'Brien – never a man to stay silent long – was occasionally outspoken about what he felt were local breaches in civil rights and free speech. Nkrumah, becoming somewhat paranoid after an assassination attempt, deported several of O'Brien's European colleagues at the university. After an interval, O'Brien followed them voluntarily, becoming Albert Schweitzer professor of humanities at New York University.

Armed with the archive material, one expert concluded Hammarskjöld "knew in advance that the UN was about to take action in Katanga and he authorised that action". A decade before his execution for his part in the Easter Rising, Roger Casement led the campaign exposing the atrocities inflicted by the Belgians, who enslaved millions of natives to cultivate the world's new industrial wonder, rubber. Casement's friend Joseph Conrad captured a taste of this regime of terror in his shocking novel Heart of Darkness which became the movie Apocalypse Now. National Review, April 8, 1996, John Gray, review of On the Eve of the Millennium, p. 53.

On 11 July, the day after Belgian paracommandos had arrived in Élisabethville for the stated purpose of protecting the European population, Moise Tshombe proclaimed the independence of Katanga province. The new Congolese government in Léopoldville (Kinshasa) asked for UN military assistance. On 17 January 1961, Patrice Lumumba, the charismatic prime minister of the Congo, who had been taken captive, was murdered by Tshombe's troops. In May 1954 the second inter-party government took office and Liam Cosgrave was appointed minister for External Affairs.

Eventually he returned to Ireland, where there had been a swing to the left politically, and stood as a Labour candidate in a Dublin constituency. Unexpectedly, he won a big vote and became embroiled with his bete noire, Haughey, for whom he later coined the word Gubu – standing for "grotesque, unusual, bizarre and unprecedented". O'Brien attacked Haughey over his role in the arms crisis, a cause celébre at the time, in which certain Fianna Fail politicians were alleged to have tried to smuggle arms shipments to nationalists in Northern Ireland. In the Department of External Affairs, during the 1948–51 inter-party government, he served under Seán MacBride, son of John MacBride and Maud Gonne, republican and former IRA Chief of Staff, who would become the 1974 Nobel Peace Laureate.

With Máire he campaigned against the Vietnam war, and sustained in December 1966 a severe kick in the hip from a New York policeman ('no prizes for guessing his ethnicity') at an anti-war demonstration in Manhattan at which they were both arrested. He was consistently critical of the passivity of American policy towards South Africa and Rhodesia. He visited Biafra in mid-September 1967, and asserted the rights of the Ibo in an extended piece for the New York Review of Books, and in the Observer, rejecting any equation of Biafra with Katanga. He supported Senator Eugene McCarthy's anti-Vietnam war campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968. His concise and brilliant, if coldly unsparing, Camus (1970) belongs to his New York period.

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Chicago River Architecture Tour (90 minutes)

The most unique tour boat in chicago, housing a mini museum, fun for the kids, and a bar onboard!

See Stunning Fireworks over the Chicago Skyline

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Chicago Skyline Sail

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Fireworks Cruise From Navy Pier Aboard Tall Ship Windy!

The 8 Best Luxury Boat Rentals In Chicago - CS Modern Luxury

Memorial Day Weekend in Chicago Fireworks, Things to Do, Events & Parades - Choose Chicago

Wendella Tours & Cruises

Chicago Line Cruises

Explore Chicago Sailing Special Events

SAIL WITH US!

Your boat includes:

New Year's Eve Premier Plus Dinner Cruise on the Chicago River 12/31/2023 - Choose Chicago

Monday, April 1, 2024

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 1917-2008 The Chicago Blog - University of Chicago

Police Powers

Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at 91; Irish author became a prominent diplomat

Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien dies - SFGATE

More From the Los Angeles Times

Holy War Against India

Israeli strikes intensify across Gaza as fresh evacuations ordered in north of enclave

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Save article to Kindle

Conor Cruise O'Brien, 91, Irish diplomat and writer; Paul Weyrich, conservative strategist

Opposition to the Vietnam War

Changing the Guard Conor Cruise O'Brien - The New York Review of Books

Ireland's Fissures, and My Family's

Holy War Against India

Conor Cruise O’Brien dies at 91; Irish author became a prominent diplomat

Conor Cruise O'Brien: The Irishman at heart of Congo siege

Conor Cruise O'Brien: Irish intellectual with a long career as - The Independent

Saturday, November 4, 2023

Friday, November 3, 2023

Thursday, November 2, 2023