augustine

Mr. Birrell, concerned about the Irish Backstop?

from National Library of Ireland on The Commons

• 5 older comments, and then…
• DannyM8 said:

  How is he walking with just one leg??

• beachcomber australia said:

  "Augustine Birrell KC (19 January 1850 – 20 November 1933) was a British Liberal Party politician, who was Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1907 to 1916. In this post, he was praised for enabling tenant farmers to own their property, and for extending university education for Catholics. But he was criticised for failing to take action against the rebels before the Easter Rising, and resigned. A barrister by training, he was also an author, noted for humorous essays. ... " More at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_Birrell Ed. - Also including this which might explain the look on his face in 1914 - "Personal Life While Birrell's first phase as Chief Secretary was a clear success, the period from about 1912 onwards saw something of a decline in Birrell's career which was also mirrored in his domestic life. Birrell's second wife Eleanor had been suffering from an inoperable brain tumour and this eventually caused her to lose her sanity. This affected Birrell deeply, privately and publicly, but he did not tell his political colleagues, who were simply given to understand that she did not care for social life. There were two sons of the marriage Francis and Anthony. The quality of his public work deteriorated and as one historian has noted the severe personal strain must have been a contributory factor in "...the uncharacteristic combination of excessive zeal and indecision which marked [Birrell's] response to the Dublin industrial agitation of 1913".[39] Only after Eleanor died in 1915 did Birrell begin to regain some of his old energy and effectiveness as a minister."

• beachcomber australia said:

  Via Trove, a couple of glowing contemporary (1916) articles about Mr Birrell - trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145762823 trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220918796

• CASSIDY PHOTOGRAPHY said:

  And, on and on it goes and will continue.

• Sharon Corbet said:

  The stairs behind him might be these ones, on Downing St alongside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.