Star urging coffee lovers to host fundraiser

Domhnall Gleeson is urging people across north Dublin to host coffee mornings next month to help raise €2million for ‘extraordinary’ hospice services.

The hollywood star is supporting Bewley’s Big Coffee morning Social for hospice, which has generated €43.2million since 1992. he joined hospice hosts and volunteers at the iconic Bewley’s café on Grafton

Street on august 2, and asked everyone in Ireland to host or support this year’s event on September 21. Both of Gleeson’s grandparents – his father Brendan’s parents - spent their final days in St Francis hospice in Dublin.

“my grandma (Pat) was only there for a few weeks and that was my first experience of being around a hospice,” said the harry Potter and

James Connolly plaque unveiled

JameS Connolly, socialist and signatory of the 1916 Proclamation, has been commemorated by a Dublin City Council plaque.

Born in edinburgh in 1868, to Irish parents, Connolly became a key figure in the Irish trade union movement and socialist politics, particularly after his return to Dublin from the United States in 1910.

From December 1910 to may 1911, Connolly and his family lived at 70 South lotts Road, Ringsend, Dublin 4, where the plaque was unveiled by the lord mayor. The house is one of only two surviving in which Connolly lived in the city Connolly then moved to Belfast as organiser for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU), where he saw at first hand the sectarianism that blighted Belfast and the north east generally.

In 1912, along with William o’Brien and Jim larkin, and others on the Dublin Trades Council, Connolly was instrumental in getting the Irish Trades Union Congress to establish a political wing, giving birth to the labour Party.

Connolly returned to Dublin from Belfast during the 1913 lockout and after larkin left for america in 1914 he became acting General Secretary of the ITGWU and the leader of the Irish Citizens’ army.

Following the 1916 Rising , and badly wounded and unable to stand, he was executed at Kilmainham by firing squad, while sitting on a wooden box.

Star Wars actor, 40. “I was incredibly close to her and I was struck by the atmosphere of care and kindness. She had a rough journey before she got there - and all of a sudden, that difficult road seemed less punishing to travel.” he recalled thinking she seemed as ‘safe and cared for’ as possible.

“It was such a relief,” he said.

“In terms of my granddad (Francis), we had been looking after him for a long time, probably about a year, and didn’t think he was going to last that long in hospice, but he was there for months.

“The care was extraordinary, but he had a new lease of life, it (hospice care) gives their body the care it needs, and makes them feel special.”

“If you cannot host or attend one, you can make a donation at hospicecoffeemorning.ie/ donate.”