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Robert Briscoe
Robert “Bob” Briscoe (25 September 1894 - 11 March 1969) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) from 1927 to 1965. In 1956, he be...view moreRobert “Bob” Briscoe (25 September 1894 - 11 March 1969) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) in the Oireachtas (Irish parliament) from 1927 to 1965. In 1956, he became the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin.
He was a son of Abraham William Briscoe, who had arrived in Ireland penniless and made his fortune as a brush salesman, then of imported tea, and Ida Yoedicke, the daughter of a successful family in Frankfurt, Germany. Both parents were Lithuanian-Jewish immigrants.
He was active in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Sinn Féin during the Irish War of Independence, speaking for the Sinn Féin cause at public meetings in America. During WWII, as a member of Dáil Éireann supporting Zionism and lobbying on behalf of refugees, he came under close scrutiny from the Irish security services. After the war he acted as a special advisor to Menachem Begin in the transformation of Irgun from a paramilitary group to parliamentary political movement in the form of Herut in the new Israeli.
He served in Dáil Éireann for 38 years and was elected 12 times in the Dublin South and from 1948, Dublin South-West constituencies—from the 6th Dáil to the 17th Dáil. He retired at the 1965 election being succeeded by his son, Ben who served for a further 37 years.
He passed away in 1969 at the age of 74.
ALDEN R. HATCH (September 16, 1898 - February 1, 1975) was an American writer. Born in New York City, he was the author of more than 40 books. A number of his works chronicled the lives of a variety of high-profile individuals such as Pope Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, Charles de Gaulle, Prince Bernhard, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Wendell Willkie and Woodrow Wilson. A fan of Thoroughbred horse racing, in 1938 he also collaborated with Foxhall Keene on a biography of the late James R. Keene, the renowned horseman and owner of Castleton Farm. Hatch died in Sarasota, Florida in 1975, aged 76.view less