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The Last Hurrah

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The Last Hurrah is a 1956 novel written by Edwin O'Connor . It is considered the most popular of O’Connor's works, partly because of a 1958 movie adaptation starring Spencer Tracy . The novel was immediately a bestseller in the United States for 20 weeks, and was also on lists for bestseller of that year. The Last Hurrah won the 1955 Atlantic Prize Novel award, and was highlighted by the Book-of-the-Month Club and Reader's Digest . The Last Hurrah received very positive critical reviews, including an "ecstatic" one from the New York Times Book Review .

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110-455: The plot of The Last Hurrah focuses on a mayoral election in an unnamed East Coast city. Veteran Irish , Democratic Party politician Frank Skeffington is running for yet another term as mayor. As a former governor, he is usually called by the honorific title "Governor." While the city is never named, it is frequently assumed to be Boston. Skeffington is assumed to represent Boston Mayor and Massachusetts Governor James Michael Curley . The story

220-489: A Boston newspaper asked Curley to review the novel he refused and said, "The matter is in the hands of my attorneys." When he saw that the roguish Skeffington charmed readers the former mayor began praising the novel, however, including in person to O'Connor. In a lecture at the University of New Hampshire on the book, Curley treated The Last Hurrah as a de facto biography of himself and discussed things that he believed

330-457: A boat. Jeames Benninge (a Scottish indentured servant), black Franke (a servant to Mr John Devitt), and Tomakin, Clemento, and black Dick (servants of Mrs Anne Trimingham) were also punished. In 1661, the colonial government alleged that a plot was being hatched by an alliance of Blacks and Irish, one which involved cutting the throats of all Bermudians of English descent. The governor of Bermuda , William Sayle (who had returned to Bermuda after

440-684: A brigade of 700 Irish volunteers to fight for Franco during the Spanish Civil War , and Frank Ryan led the Connolly Column who fought on the opposite side, with the Republican International Brigades . William Joyce became an English-language propagandist for Nazi Germany , known colloquially as Lord Haw-Haw . Some of the first Irish people to travel to the New World did so as members of

550-868: A crucial focus of communal life among some of the immigrant population and their descendants. The largest ethnic group among the Roman Catholic priesthood of Britain remains Irish (in the United States, the upper ranks of the Church's hierarchy are of predominantly Irish descent). The former head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is Cardinal Keith O'Brien . Scotland experienced a significant amount of Irish immigration, particularly in Glasgow , Edinburgh and Coatbridge . This led to

660-641: A man of high moral standards and a student at Transylvania College in Kentucky . Cass's story, as revealed through his journals and letters, is essentially about a single betrayal of a friend that seems to ripple endlessly outward with negative consequences for many people. In studying this fragment of Civil War –era history, Jack begins to suspect (but cannot yet bring himself to accept) the idea that every event has unforeseen and unknowable implications, and that all actions and all persons are connected to other actions and other persons. Jack suggests that one reason he

770-529: A new campaign medium: television advertising. Surprisingly, McClusky defeats Skeffington on election day. One of Adam's friends explains that the election was "a last hurrah" for the kind of old-style machine politics that Skeffington had mastered. Developments in American public life, including the consequences of the New Deal, have so changed the face of city politics that Skeffington no longer can survive in

880-526: A novel may depend on its journalistic relevance. It is a little graceless of me to call this characteristic unfortunate, and to quarrel with it, for certainly the journalistic relevance of All the King's Men had a good deal to do with what interest it evoked. My politician hero, whose name, in the end, was Willie Stark, was quickly equated with the late Senator Huey P. Long. ... This equation led, in different quarters, to quite contradictory interpretations of

990-636: A quarter claimed some Irish ancestry in one survey. The Irish have traditionally been involved in the building trade and transport particularly as dockers, following an influx of Irish workers, or navvies , to build the British canal, road and rail networks in the 19th century. This is largely due to the flow of emigrants from Ireland during the Great Famine of 1845–1849. Many Irish servicemen, particularly sailors, settled in Britain: During

1100-542: A result, Irish in Leinster, and Munster, with property worth more than £10, were ordered to move to Connaught , to land valued at no more than 1/3 the value of their current holding, or be banished on pain of death. In the 17th century 50,000 Irish people are estimated to have migrated to the New World colonies, 165,000 by 1775. The population of Ireland fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000, between 1641 and 1652, over 550,000 attributed to famine and other war-related causes. In

1210-515: A significant aspect of our life." He ended the review saying, "All together it is the finest American novel in more years than one would like to have to remember." The New York Times Book Review 's Orville Prescott praised the book's energy, writing that "[i]t isn't a great novel or a completely finished work of art. It is as bumpy and uneven as a corduroy road, somewhat irresolute and confused in its approach to vital problems and not always convincing. Nevertheless, Robert Penn Warren's All

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1320-624: A strong political presence in the UK (mostly in Scotland), in local government and at the national level. Former prime ministers David Cameron , Tony Blair , John Major and James Callaghan have been amongst the many in Britain of part-Irish ancestry; Blair's mother, Hazel Elizabeth Rosaleen Corscaden, was born on 12 June 1923 in Ballyshannon , County Donegal . Former Chancellor George Osborne

1430-561: Is a member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and heir to the baronetcies of Ballentaylor and Ballylemon. Moreover, the UK holds official public St. Patrick's Day celebrations. While many such celebrations were suspended in the 1970s because of The Troubles , the holiday is now widely celebrated by the UK public. Irish links with the continent go back many centuries. During the early Middle Ages, 700–900 AD, many Irish religious figures went abroad to preach and found monasteries in what

1540-409: Is an elderly gentleman whom Jack has known since childhood, a man who is essentially a father figure to him. Willie Stark assigns Jack the task of digging through Irwin's past to find something with which Irwin can be blackmailed. Jack investigates thoroughly and finds what he is looking for: an incident many years ago when Judge Irwin took a bribe to dismiss a lawsuit against a fuel company, resulting in

1650-402: Is impossible for an individual to stand aloof and be a mere observer of life, as Jack tries to do (first as a graduate student doing historical research and later as a wisecracking newspaperman). In the atmosphere of the 1930s, the whole population seemed to abandon responsibility by living vicariously through messianic political figures like Willie Stark. Thus, Stark fulfills the wishes of many of

1760-587: Is interwoven with Jack Burden's life story and philosophical reflections: "the story of Willie Stark and the story of Jack Burden are, in one sense, one story." The novel evolved from a verse play that Warren began writing in 1936 entitled Proud Flesh . One of the characters in Proud Flesh was named Willie Talos, in reference to the brutal character Talus in Edmund Spenser 's late 16th-century epic poem The Faerie Queene . A 2002 version of All

1870-853: Is known as the Hiberno-Scottish mission . Saint Brieuc founded the city that bears his name in Brittany , Saint Colmán founded the great monastery of Bobbio in northern Italy and one of his monks was Saint Gall for whom the Swiss town of St Gallen and canton of St Gallen are named. During the Counter-Reformation , Irish religious and political links with Europe became stronger. An important centre of learning and training for Irish priests developed in Leuven (Lúbhan in Irish) in

1980-640: Is named Callan Glen for a Scottish-born shipwright, Claude MacCallan , who settled in Bermuda after the vessel in which he was a passenger was wrecked off the North Shore in 1787. MacCallan swam to a rock from which he was rescued by a Bailey's Bay fisherman named Daniel Seon ( Sheehan ). A later Daniel Seon was appointed Clerk of the House of Assembly and Prothonotary of the Court of General Assize in 1889 (he

2090-611: Is named after him, as well as the Almirante Brown partido , part of the Gran Buenos Aires urban area, with a population of over 500.000 inhabitants. The first entirely Roman Catholic English language publication published in Buenos Aires, The Southern Cross is an Argentine newspaper founded on 16 January 1875 by Dean Patricio Dillon, an Irish immigrant, a deputy for Buenos Aires Province and president of

2200-436: Is propelled in part by a fascination with the mystery of Stark's larger-than-life character, and equally by his struggle to discover some underlying principle to make sense of all that has happened. In narrating the story, Jack commingles his own personal story with the political story of Governor Stark. Anne is Jack Burden's childhood sweetheart and the daughter of Willie Stark's political predecessor, Governor Stanton. Many of

2310-464: Is shot to death in the state capitol building by a physician. The title of the book possibly came from Long's motto, "Every Man a King" or his nickname, Kingfish. In his introduction to the Modern Library edition, Warren denied that the book should be read as either praise for Huey Long or praise for his assassination: One of the unfortunate characteristics of our time is that the reception of

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2420-544: Is the Republic of Ireland 's Minister of State for the Diaspora and Overseas Aid, a post which was established in 2014. The term Irish diaspora is open to many interpretations. The diaspora , broadly interpreted, contains all those known to have Irish ancestors, i.e., over 100 million people, which is more than fifteen times the population of the island of Ireland , which was about 6.4 million in 2011. It has been argued

2530-411: Is the kind of doom that democracy may invite upon itself. The book, however, was never intended to be a book about politics. Politics merely provided the framework story in which the deeper concerns, whatever their final significance, might work themselves out. Jack Burden is the novel's narrator, a former student of history, newspaper columnist, and personal aide to Governor Willie Stark. His narrative

2640-533: Is told in the third person, either by a narrator or by Adam Caulfield, the mayor's nephew. Skeffington is a veteran and adept "machine" politician, and probably corrupt as well. The novel portrays him as a flawed great man with many achievements to his credit. At the beginning of the book, Skeffington is 72 and has been giving signs that he might consider retiring from public life at the end of his current term. He surprises many by announcing what he had always intended to do: run for another term as mayor. The main body of

2750-668: Is unable to complete his dissertation on Cass's life is that perhaps "he was afraid to understand for what might be understood there was a reproach to him." Besides the early verse play version Proud Flesh , Robert Penn Warren wrote several stage adaptations of All the King's Men , one of them in close collaboration with famous German theatre director Erwin Piscator in 1947. The story was adapted for radio by NBC University Theatre and broadcast in January 1949. Wayne Morris played Jack Burden, with Paul Frees as Willie Stark. All

2860-561: The 1848 discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada lured away more. Irish migration to Great Britain has occurred since the early medieval period . The largest waves of Irish migration occurred in the 19th century, when a devastating famine broke out in Ireland, resulting in thousands of Irish immigrants settling down in Britain, primarily in the port cities of Liverpool and Glasgow . Other waves of Irish migration occurred during

2970-563: The British armed forces . In the post-war reconstruction era, the numbers of immigrants began to increase, many settling in the larger cities and towns of Britain. According to the 2001 census, around 850,000 people in Britain were born in Ireland. The largest Irish communities in Britain are located predominantly in the cities and towns: in London, in particular Kilburn (which has one of the largest Irish-born communities outside Ireland) out to

3080-539: The British population ). The 2001 UK census states that 869,093 people born in Ireland are living in Great Britain. More than 10% of those born in the United Kingdom have at least one grandparent born in Ireland. The article "More Britons applying for Irish passports" states that 6 million Britons have either an Irish grandfather or grandmother and are thus able to apply for Irish citizenship. Almost

3190-544: The Constitution of Ireland was amended in 1998 to read "[f]urthermore, the Irish nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage." There are people of Irish descent abroad (including Irish speakers ) who reject inclusion in an Irish "diaspora" and who designate their identity in other ways. They may see the diasporic label as something used by

3300-750: The Duchy of Brabant , now in Flanders (northern Belgium). The Flight of the Earls , in 1607, led much of the Gaelic nobility to flee the country, and after the wars of the 17th century many others fled to Spain, France, Austria, and other Roman Catholic lands. The lords and their retainers and supporters joined the armies of these countries, and were known as the Wild Geese . Some of the lords and their descendants rose to high ranks in their adoptive countries, such as

3410-538: The Early Middle Ages , Great Britain and Continental Europe experienced Irish immigration of varying intensity, mostly from clerics and scholars who are collectively known as peregrini . Irish emigration to Western Europe , especially to Great Britain, has continued at a greater or lesser pace since then. Today, the ethnic Irish are the single largest minority group in both England and Scotland, most of whom eventually made it back to Ireland. The dispersal of

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3520-542: The Encumbered Estates' Court in 1849 and the removal of existing civil rights and class norms. Any remaining hope for change was squashed by the 1847 death of Daniel O'Connell , the political leader who championed liberal and reform causes and emancipation for Ireland's Catholics, and the failed rising of the Young Irelanders in 1848. More was to be gained by immigrating to America from Ireland, and

3630-777: The National Film Registry . It is noted, however, for deviating significantly from the novel's storyline. NBC network's Kraft Television Theatre broadcast a television version of All the King's Men in May 1958. This adaptation was directed by Sidney Lumet and starred Neville Brand as Willie Stark. A Soviet TV adaptation titled Vsya Korolevskaya Rat was produced in 1971 by Byelorussian TV. It starred Georgiy Zhzhonov (Willie Stark), Mikhail Kozakov (Jack Burden), Alla Demidova (Anne), Oleg Yefremov (Adam), Rostislav Plyatt (Irwin), Lev Durov (Sugar Boy). Initially Pavel Luspekayev starred as Willie Stark, but he

3740-768: The Spanish general and politician Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuan , who became the president of the Government of Spain or the French general and politician Patrice de Mac-Mahon, Duke of Magenta , who became the president of the French Republic . The French Cognac brandy maker, Hennessy , was founded by Richard Hennessy , an Irish officer in the Clare Regiment of the Irish Brigade of

3850-464: The United States . After 1765, emigration from Ireland became a short, relentless and efficiently managed national enterprise. In 1890, 40% of Irish-born people were living abroad. By the 21st century, an estimated 80 million people worldwide claimed some Irish descent, which includes more than 36 million Americans claiming Irish as their primary ethnicity. As recently as the second half of

3960-714: The 1880s. Considered by some to be a national hero, William Brown is the most famous Irish citizen in Argentina. Creator of the Argentine Navy ( Armada de la República Argentina , ARA) and leader of the Argentine Armed Forces in the wars against Brazil and Spain, he was born in Foxford , County Mayo on 22 June 1777 and died in Buenos Aires in 1857. The Almirante Brown -class destroyer

4070-545: The 19th and early 20th centuries, over 38,000 Irish immigrated to Argentina . Very distinct Irish communities and schools existed until the Perón era in the 1950s. Today there are an estimated 500,000 people of Irish ancestry in Argentina, approximately 15.5% of the Republic of Ireland's current population; however, these numbers may be far higher, given that many Irish newcomers declared themselves to be British, as Ireland at

4180-483: The 19th century, including participants in the ill-fated Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 , nationalist journalist and politician John Mitchel , and painter and convicted murderer William Burke Kirwan . Alongside English convicts, they were used to build the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island. Conditions for the convicts were harsh, and discipline was draconian. In April, 1830, convict James Ryan

4290-413: The 19th century, most Irish emigrants spoke Irish as their first language. That had social and cultural consequences for the cultivation of the language abroad, including innovations in journalism. The language continues to be cultivated abroad by a small minority as a literary and social medium. The Irish diaspora are largely assimilated in most countries outside Ireland after World War I . Seán Fleming

4400-505: The 20th century, as Irish immigrants escaping poor economic conditions in Ireland following the establishment of the Irish Free State , came to Britain in response to labour shortages. These waves of migration have resulted in millions of British citizens being of Irish descent. An article for The Guardian estimated that as many as six million people living in the United Kingdom have an Irish-born grandparent (around 10% of

4510-653: The Atlantic (a distance of around 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi)) in a two-ton boat. By the following year, one of Bermuda's main islands was named after Ireland . By the mid-17th century, Irish prisoners of war and civilian captives were involuntarily shipped to Bermuda, condemned to indentured servitude . These people had become indentured as a result of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland . The Cromwellian conquest led to Irish captives, from both military and civilian backgrounds, to be sent as indentured servants to

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4620-458: The Bermudian colonial government acknowledged the authority of Parliament ) countered the alleged plot with three edicts: The first was that a nightly watch be raised throughout the colony; second, that slaves and the Irish be disarmed of militia weapons; and third, that any gathering of two or more Irish or slaves be dispersed by whipping. There were no arrests, trials or executions connected to

4730-708: The Depression-era Deep South . It was inspired by the real-life story of U.S. Senator Huey P. Long , who was assassinated in 1935. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme " Humpty Dumpty ." Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men in 1947. It was later adapted into two films of the same name, in 1949 and 2006 ; the 1949 version won the Academy Award for Best Picture . The novel has received critical acclaim and remained perennially popular since its first publication. It

4840-550: The French Army. In Spain and its territories, many Irish descendants can be found with the name Obregón ( O'Brien , Irish , Ó Briain ), including Madrid-born actress Ana Victoria García Obregón . During the 20th century, certain Irish intellectuals made their homes in continental Europe, particularly James Joyce , and later Samuel Beckett (who became a courier for the French Resistance ). Eoin O'Duffy led

4950-583: The Industrial Revolution and, in the case of the first three, the strength of the motor industry in the 1960s and 1970s. The towns of Hebburn , Jarrow and Coatbridge have all earned the nickname 'Little Ireland' due to their high Irish populations. Central to the Irish community in Britain was the community's relationship with the Roman Catholic Church , with which it maintained a strong sense of identity. The Church remains

5060-475: The Irish culture brought by indentured servants from Ireland. Catholicism was outlawed in Bermuda by the colonial authorities, and all islanders were required by law to attend services of the established Anglican church . Some surnames that were common in Bermuda at this period, however, give lingering evidence of the Irish presence. For example, the area to the east of Bailey's Bay , in Hamilton Parish,

5170-508: The Irish diaspora as all persons of Irish nationality who habitually reside outside the island of Ireland. This includes Irish citizens who have emigrated abroad and their children, who are Irish citizens by descent under Irish law . It also includes their grandchildren in cases where they were registered as Irish citizens in the Foreign Births Register held in every Irish diplomatic mission . Under this legal definition,

5280-595: The Irish diaspora is considerably smaller—some 3 million persons, of whom 1.47 million are Irish-born emigrants. Given the island of Ireland's estimated population of 6.8 million in 2018, this is still a large ratio. However, the usage of Irish diaspora is generally not limited by citizenship status, thus leading to an estimated (and fluctuating) membership of up to 80 million persons—the second and more emotive definition. The Irish Government acknowledged this interpretation—although it did not acknowledge any legal obligations to persons in this larger diaspora—when Article 2 of

5390-650: The Irish government for its own purposes. The Irish, who were called by the Romans Scotti but called themselves Gaels , had raided and settled along the West Coast of Roman Britain , and numbers of them were allowed to settle within the province, where the Roman Army recruited many Irish into auxiliary units that were dispatched to the German frontier. The Attacotti , who were similarly recruited into

5500-522: The Irish has been mainly to Britain or to countries colonised by Britain. England's political connection with Ireland began in 1155, when Pope Adrian IV issued a papal bull (known as Laudabiliter ), which gave Henry II permission to invade Ireland as a means of strengthening the papacy's control over the Irish Church. That was followed in 1169 by the Norman invasion of Ireland , which was led by

5610-639: The Irish servants should take care that they straggle not night nor daie as is too common with them. If any masters or dames be remiss hereafter in watching over them, they shall be fyned according to the discretion of the Governor and counsell , and that it shall not be lawfull for any inhabitant in these Islands to buy or purchase any more of the Irish nation upon any pretence whatsoever". In September, 1658, three Irishmen – John Chehen (Shehan, Sheehan, Sheene, or Sheen), David Laragen and Edmund Malony – were lashed for breaking curfew and being suspected of stealing

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5720-501: The King's Men , a movie made based on Warren's novel, was released several months later in 1949. The film won three Oscars that year: Best Picture , Best Actor ( Broderick Crawford ), and Best Supporting Actress ( Mercedes McCambridge ). The movie was also nominated for four more categories. In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant", and selected it for preservation in

5830-401: The King's Men is magnificently vital reading, a book so charged with dramatic tension it almost crackles with blue sparks, a book so drenched with fierce emotion, narrative pace and poetic imagery that its stature as a 'readin' book', as some of its characters would call it, dwarfs that of most current publications." Despite the positive reviews, in 1974, All the King's Men was challenged at

5940-538: The King's Men , re-edited by Noel Polk, keeps the name "Willie Talos" for the Boss as originally written in Warren's manuscript, and is known as the "restored edition" for using this name as well as printing several passages removed from the original edit. Warren claimed that All the King's Men was "never intended to be a book about politics." A central motif of the novel is that all actions have consequences and that it

6050-452: The Presidential Affairs Commission amongst other positions. The newspaper continues in print to this day and publishes a beginner's guide to the Irish language , helping Irish Argentines keep in touch with their cultural heritage. Previously to The Southern Cross Dublin-born brothers Edward and Michael Mulhall successfully published The Standard , allegedly the first English-language daily paper in South America. Between 1943 and 1946,

6160-406: The Roman army, may also have been Irish settlers in Britain. The movement between Ireland and the classical Britain may have been two-way as similarities between the medieval accounts of Túathal Techtmar and archaeological evidence indicate that the Romans may have supported the invasion and conquest of Ireland by Irish exiles from Britain with the hope of establishing a friendly ruler who could halt

6270-442: The Scottish, African and Native American communities in Bermuda to form a new demographic: the coloureds , which in Bermuda meant anyone not entirely of European descent . In modern-day Bermuda, the term has been replaced by ' Black ', in which wholly sub-Saharan African ancestry is erroneously implicit. The Irish quickly proved hostile to their new conditions in Bermuda, and colonial legislation soon stipulated: that those that hath

6380-408: The Spanish garrison in Florida during the 1560s, and small numbers of Irish colonists were involved in efforts to establish colonies in the Amazon region, in Newfoundland, and in Virginia between 1604 and the 1630s. According to historian Donald Akenson, there were "few if any" Irish being forcibly transported to the New World during this period. The Plantation of Ulster , by the Stuart monarchy of

6490-462: The West Indies. The Puritan Commonwealth government saw sending indentured servants from Ireland to the Caribbean as both assisting in their conquest of the island (by removing the strongest resistance against their rule) and saving the souls of the Roman Catholic Irish servants by settling them in Protestant-dominated colonies where they would supposedly inevitably convert to the " true faith ". These rapid demographic changes quickly began to alarm

6600-464: The agony of will." The central character of Willie Stark (often simply referred to as "the Boss") undergoes a radical transformation from an idealistic lawyer and weak gubernatorial candidate into a charismatic and extraordinarily powerful governor. In achieving this office Stark comes to embrace various forms of corruption and builds an enormous political machine based on patronage and intimidation. His approach to politics earns him many enemies in

6710-416: The aid that New Deal agencies gave to their constituents. They may also cite that Roosevelt himself endeavored to strengthen ties to local politics before the Hatch Act stopped him. Another major theme, perhaps the most important one in hindsight, is the role of outrageous television ads. The McCluskey ad that helps him win shows his family in a provocative pose that "wins the grandmothers." The Last Hurrah

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6820-407: The basis of modern Scotland . The traditionally Gaelic -speaking areas of Scotland (the Highlands and Hebrides ) are still referred to in the Gaelic language as a' Ghàidhealtachd ("the Gaeldom"). Irish monks and the Celtic Church engineered a wave of Irish emigration to Great Britain and Continental Europe and were possibly the first inhabitants of the Faroe Islands and Iceland . Throughout

6930-466: The breakwater, brandishing a poker threateningly. For this, he was ordered to receive punishment (presumably flogging) on Tuesday, 3 July 1849, with the other convicts aboard the hulk assembled behind a rail to witness. When ordered to strip, he hesitated. Thomas Cronin, his older brother, addressed him and, while brandishing a knife, rushed forward to the separating rail. He called out to the other prisoners in Irish and many joined him in attempting to free

7040-441: The characters, or seems to do so. For instance, his faithful bodyguard Sugar-Boy, who stutters, loves Stark because "the b-boss could t-talk so good", and Jack Burden cannot bring himself to sleep with Anne Stanton, whom he loves, although Stark does so. It is in that sense that the characters are "all the king's men", a line taken from the poem Humpty Dumpty (Warren biographer Joseph Blotner also notes, "Like Humpty Dumpty, each of

7150-414: The consequent displacement of the pre-plantation Roman Catholic landholders. As the military and political defeat of Gaelic Ireland became more pronounced in the early 17th century, sectarian conflict became a recurrent theme in Irish history . Roman Catholics and members of dissenting Protestant denominations suffered severe political and economic privations from Penal Laws . The Irish Parliament

7260-417: The de facto President of Argentina was Edelmiro Farrell , whose paternal ancestry was Irish. Early in its history, Bermuda had reputed connections with Ireland. It has been suggested that St. Brendan discovered it during his legendary voyage; a local psychiatric hospital (since renamed) was named after him. In 1616, an incident occurred in which five white settlers arrived in Ireland, having crossed

7370-399: The dominant Anglo-Bermudian population, in particular the Irish indentured servants, most of whom were presumed to be secretly practising Catholicism ( recusancy had been outlawed by the colonial government). Relationships between the Anglo-Bermudian community and Irish indentured servants consistently remained hostile, resulting in the Irish responding to ostracism by ultimately merging with

7480-427: The early 17th century, primarily in the lands gained by the Flight of the Earls , with an equal number of loyal Lowland Scots and redundant English Border reivers , caused resentment, as did their transferring of all property owned by the Roman Catholic Church to the Church of Ireland , resulting in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 . Following the rebellion's failure the Commonwealth regime began to pacify Ireland, through

7590-399: The fiction Willie Stark, may be indicated by the fact that in the verse play [ Proud Flesh ] the name of the politician was Talos – the name of the brutal, blank-eyed 'iron groom' of Spenser's Fairie Queene , the pitiless servant of the knight of justice. My conception grew wider, but that element always remained, and Willie Stark remained, in one way, Willie Talos. In other words, Talos

7700-413: The first half of the 19th century a third of the Army and Royal Navy were Irish. The Irish still represent a large contingent of foreign volunteers to the British military. Since the 1950s and 1960s in particular, the Irish have become assimilated into the British population. Emigration continued into the next century; over half a million Irish went to Britain in World War II to work in industry and serve in

7810-439: The formation of Celtic Football Club in 1888 by Marist Brother Walfrid , to raise money to help the community. In Edinburgh Hibernian were founded in 1875 and in 1909 another club with Irish links, Dundee United , was formed. Likewise the Irish community in London formed the London Irish rugby union club. The 2001 UK census states in Scotland 50,000 people identified as having Irish heritage. The Irish have maintained

7920-438: The four years of the blight. Kennedy argues that the famine was considered the final straw because it convinced more people to move even though several other factors influenced their decision. By 1900, the population of Ireland was about half of its 1840 peak, and it continued to fall during the 20th century. In the decades that followed independence in the 1920s, emigration accelerated for economic and social reasons, and with

8030-574: The general Richard de Clare , or Strongbow . The English Crown did not attempt to assert full control of the island until after Henry VIII 's repudiation of papal authority over the Church in England , and the subsequent rebellion of the Earl of Kildare in Ireland in 1534 threatened English hegemony there. Until the break with Rome , it was widely believed that Ireland was a papal possession, which

8140-534: The greatest in South America . Despite the fact that Argentina was never the main destination for Irish emigrants it does form part of the Irish diaspora. The Irish-Argentine William Bulfin remarked as he travelled around Westmeath in the early 20th century that he came across many locals who had been to Buenos Aires. Several families from Bere island , County Cork were encouraged to send emigrants to Argentina by an islander who had been successful there in

8250-608: The idea of an Irish diaspora, as distinct from the old identification of Irishness with Ireland itself, was influenced by the perceived advent of global mobility and modernity. Irishness could now be identified with dispersed individuals and groups of Irish descent. But many of those individuals were the product of complex ethnic intermarriage in America and elsewhere, complicating the idea of a single line of descent. "Irishness" might then rely primarily on individual identification with an Irish diaspora. The Government of Ireland defines

8360-486: The invitation, essentially by removing his moral high ground. Adam's sense of violation as a result of his entanglement with Governor Stark proves violently tragic when he is informed by Lieutenant Governor Tiny Duffy that Stark has been sleeping with his sister. Adam tells Anne, "he wouldn't be paid pimp to his sister's whore". His pride demolished, Adam finds the Governor at the Capitol building and shoots him. Judge Irwin

8470-567: The island of Ireland . The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages , but it can be quantified only from around 1700. Since then, between 9 and 10 million people born in Ireland have emigrated. That is more than the population of Ireland itself, which at its historical peak was 8.5 million on the eve of the Great Famine . The poorest of them went to Great Britain , especially Liverpool . Those who could afford it went further, including almost 5 million to

8580-456: The major characters has experienced a fall of some kind"). The title is derived from the motto of Huey P. Long , whose life was similar to that of Willie Stark, "Every Man a King", but that vicarious achievement will eventually fail. Jack ultimately realizes that one must "go out of history into history and the awful responsibility of Time". The "Great Twitch" is a particular brand of nihilism that Jack embraces during his journey westward: "all

8690-466: The members of his city's Protestant upper class, as well as his eventual defeat by a much younger candidate are all features of Curley's life and the conclusion they are one and the same seems obvious. Author Edwin O'Connor, however, always denied this. The city of the novel is never named; but it is certainly implied that it is supposed to represent Boston (O'Connor also lived for a period in Boston). When

8800-456: The national government would "dispense money, jobs, health care, and housing." Franklin D. Roosevelt , initiator of the New Deal, "[substituted] government social welfare programs for the corrupt ward heeler's ill-gotten private dole and power source." This shift meant a new standard of accountability by which mayoral candidates would be measured. Some scholars disagree with the above assertions, arguing that several city mayors have benefited from

8910-547: The new age with younger voters. Also, prophetically, for the first time, television ads win the day. Immediately after his defeat, Skeffington suffers a massive heart attack and another soon afterward. When he dies, he leaves behind a city in mourning for a pivotal figure in its history but no longer with room for either him or his kind. The similarities between Skeffington and Boston Mayor James Michael Curley are many. Skeffington's age and background, his worship of his dead wife, his layabout son, his antagonistic relations with

9020-697: The novel and Tracy's portrayal of the Curley proxy "Skeffington" in the film adaptation as rambunctious but heroic improved the public image the ex-mayor, who was no longer in office by 1956. In addition to giving him new publicity, Curley sued the film's producers and won $ 46,000. He is now looked upon by some with nostalgia, partly because of the book and the film. John Ford directed the adaptation. The cast included many fellow Irish-Americans and members of Ford's informal "stock company", including Spencer Tracy , Pat O'Brien , James Gleason , Frank McHugh , Wallace Ford , and Willis Bouchey . Columbia Pictures bought

9130-579: The novel as a full-length grand opera entitled Willie Stark , commissioned and premiered by the Houston Grand Opera in 1981. Adrian Hall adapted and directed a stage version of the novel at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island in April 1987. This adaptation has been staged at Trinity and other theater companies in the years since. Contemporary response to the novel

9240-549: The novel gives a detailed and insightful view of urban politics, tracking Skeffington and his nephew through rounds of campaign appearances and events, thereby showcasing a dying brand of politics and painting a broad picture of political life in general. His opponent, Kevin McCluskey, is a neophyte candidate with a handsome face and good manners, a good World War II record but no political experience, and no real abilities for politics or governing. However, McCluskey gets support from

9350-415: The novel had unfairly omitted. The Last Hurrah tells the story of the end of an era of American politics characterized by the "big-city politician" as exemplified by Frank Skeffington. In the novel, Skeffington lost because of the changing times during which the national government began to aid people in a way that only locals had before. The New Deal and its constituent laws implemented systems whereby

9460-517: The novel's passages recounting Jack's life story revolve around memories of his relationship with Anne. Like many of Jack's friends, Anne disapproves of Willie Stark. Anne reveres her father. Jack's research into Judge Irwin's past unearths a time that Governor Stanton behaved corruptly. Anne is devastated to learn this. In the wake of her turmoil, she begins an affair with Stark. Adam is a highly successful doctor, Anne Stanton's brother, and Jack Burden's childhood friend. Jack comes to view Adam Stanton as

9570-410: The novel. On one hand, there were those who took the thing to be a not-so-covert biography of, and apologia for, Senator Long, and the author to be not less than a base minion of the great man. There is really nothing to reply to this innocent boneheadedness or gospel-bit hysteria. As Louis Armstrong is reported to have said, there's some folks that, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em ... But on

9680-409: The other hand, there were those who took the thing to be a rousing declaration of democratic principles and a tract for the assassination of dictators. This view, though somewhat more congenial to my personal political views, was almost as wide of the mark. For better or worse, Willie Stark was not Huey Long. Willie [Stark] was only himself. ... [T]he difference between the person Huey P. Long and

9790-407: The personal destruction of a man named Mortimer Littlepaugh. Jack presents the incriminating evidence to Irwin, and before he has a chance to use it against him, Irwin commits suicide. Only at this point does Jack learn from his mother that Irwin was his father. One of Jack Burden's first major historical research projects revolves around the life of a 19th-century collateral ancestor , Cass Mastern,

9900-399: The plot, though an Irish woman named Margaret was found to be romantically involved with a Native American; she was voted to be stigmatised and he was whipped. During the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth Centuries, the colony's various demographic groups boiled down to free whites and mostly enslaved "coloured" Bermudians with a homogeneous Anglo-Bermudian culture. Little survived of

10010-423: The polar opposite of Governor Stark, calling Adam "the man of idea" and Stark "the man of fact". Elsewhere, he describes Adam's central motivation as a deep need to "do good". Governor Stark invites Adam to be director of his pet project, a new hospital and medical center. The position initially strikes Adam as repugnant because of his revulsion to Stark's politics, but Jack and Anne ultimately persuade him to accept

10120-463: The population fell by almost 30%. Robert E. Kennedy explains, however, that the common argument that the mass emigration from Ireland was a "flight from famine" is not entirely correct. Firstly, the Irish had been coming to Great Britain to build canals there since the 18th century, and as soon as conditions in Ireland improved, their emigration did not slow down. After the famine ended, the four years that followed it were marked by more emigration than

10230-479: The preferred destination switching from the United States to Great Britain, over 500,000 emigrated in the 1950s and 450,000 in the 1980s, and over 3 million Irish citizens resided outside Ireland in 2017. Irish people who still lived in Ireland were subjected to discrimination by Great Britain based on their religion. Evictions increased after the repeal of the British Corn Laws in 1846, the passage of

10340-543: The prisoner and attack the officers. The officers opened fire. Two men were killed and twelve wounded. Punishment of James Cronin was then carried out. Three hundred men of the 42nd Regiment of Foot , in barracks on Ireland Island, responded to the scene under arms. All the King%27s Men All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren . The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his political machinations in

10450-581: The raiding of Britain by the Irish, and some historians have also suggested that the Cruthin of the north of Ireland may have been Picts . After the departure of the Roman army, the Irish began increasing their footholds in Britain, with part of the north-West of the island annexed within the Irish kingdom of Dál Riata . In time, the Irish colonies became independent, merged with the Pictish kingdom and formed

10560-799: The rights to make this movie from O'Connor for $ 150,000. In addition to the 1958 movie, there was a made-for-TV 1977 version , starring Carroll O'Connor produced for the Hallmark Hall of Fame series of specials, with Terry Becker as executive producer. There was a 1999 staging for the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston by Eric Simonson . In addition, a two-act musical was written and produced at Northwestern University . [1] Irish diaspora The Irish diaspora ( Irish : Diaspóra na nGael ) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside

10670-619: The sentencing and transporting Irish rebels (known as “tories”), Catholic priests, friars and schoolmasters, to indentured servitude in the Crown's New World colonies . This increased following the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland (1649–1653), of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1653). Cromwell took Irish land both to repay investors who had financed the invasion and as payment for his soldiers, many of whom settled down in Ireland. As

10780-487: The state legislature, but does not detract from his popular appeal among many of his constituents, who respond with enthusiasm to his fiery populist manner. Stark's character was inspired by the life of Huey P. Long , former governor of Louisiana and that state's U.S. senator in the mid-1930s. Huey Long was at the zenith of his career when he was assassinated in 1935; just a year earlier, Robert Penn Warren had begun teaching at Louisiana State University . Stark, like Long,

10890-405: The time was still part of the United Kingdom and today their descendants integrated into Argentine society with mixed bloodlines. The modern Irish-Argentine community is composed of some of their descendants, and the total number is estimated at between 500,000 and 1,000,000. Argentina is the home of the fifth largest Irish community in the world , the largest in a non-English speaking nation and

11000-499: The twitch of the nerve." Subsequent events (including the tragic deaths of Governor Stark, Jack's lifelong friend Adam Stanton, and Judge Irwin, Jack's father) convince Jack that the revelation of the "Great Twitch" is an insufficient paradigm to explain what he has seen of history. "[H]e saw that though doomed, [his friends] had nothing to do with any doom under the godhead of the Great Twitch. They were doomed, but they lived in

11110-417: The west and north west of the city, in the large port cities such as Liverpool (which elected the first Irish nationalist members of parliament), Glasgow , Bristol , Sunderland and Portsmouth . Big industrial cities such as Salford , Manchester , Luton , Coventry , Birmingham , Sheffield , Wolverhampton , Cardiff and parts of Newcastle and Nottingham also have large diaspora populations due to

11220-406: The words we speak meant nothing and there was only the pulse in the blood and the twitch of the nerve, like a dead frog's leg in the experiment when the electric current goes through." On his way back from California, Jack gives a ride to an old man who has an involuntary facial twitch. This image becomes for him the encapsulating metaphor for the idea that "all life is but the dark heave of blood and

11330-539: Was abolished in 1801 in the wake of the republican United Irishmen Rebellion , and Ireland became an integral part of a new United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Act of Union . The Great Famine , during the 1840s saw a significant number of people flee from the island to all over the world. Between 1841 and 1851, as a result of death and mass emigration, mainly to Great Britain and North America, Ireland's population fell by over 2 million. In Connacht alone,

11440-704: Was also the Registrar of the Supreme Court, and died in 1909). In 1803, Irish poet Thomas Moore arrived in Bermuda, having been appointed registrar to the Admiralty there. Robert Kennedy, born in Cultra , County Down , was the Government of Bermuda 's Colonial Secretary , and was the acting Governor of Bermuda on three occasions (1829, 1830 and 1835–1836). Irish prisoners were again sent to Bermuda in

11550-564: Was granted as a mere fiefdom to the English king and so in 1541, Henry VIII asserted England's claim to Ireland free from the papal overlordship by proclaiming himself King of Ireland . After the Nine Years' War (1594 to 1603), political power rested in the hands of a Protestant Ascendancy minority and was marked by a Crown policy of plantation , which involved the arrival of thousands of English and Scottish Protestant settlers and

11660-462: Was gravely ill at that time and died of aortic dissection only after 30% of filming was completed, thus the movie director asked Georgiy Zhzhonov to substitute the vacated role. Another film version was produced in 2006 by writer/director Steven Zaillian , who wanted to more faithfully follow Warren's version of the story than the original film did. However, it was a critical and commercial disappointment. American composer Carlisle Floyd adapted

11770-464: Was largely positive. Writing in the New Republic , George Mayberry wrote that the novel was "in the tradition of many classics", comparing the novel favorably with Moby-Dick , The Sun Also Rises , and The Great Gatsby . "The single quality that encompasses these varied books", he wrote, "is the use of the full resources of the American language to record with imagination and intelligence

11880-482: Was rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library , and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 best novels since 1923 . All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, an idealistic but underhanded populist in the 1930s American South . The novel is narrated by Jack Burden, a political reporter who comes to work as Governor Stark's right-hand man. The trajectory of Stark's career

11990-472: Was shot and killed during rioting of convicts on Ireland Island. Another five convicts were given death sentences for their parts in the riots, with those of the youngest three being commuted to transportation (to Australia ) for life. In June 1849 convict James Cronin , on the hulk Medway at Ireland Island, was placed in solitary confinement from the 25th to the 29th for fighting. On release, and being returned to work, he refused to be cross-ironed. He ran onto

12100-424: Was the first major novel to depict the development in political campaigns. Along with Democracy (1880), All the King's Men (1946), and Advise and Consent (1959), The Last Hurrah is among the more successful novels about American politics. The title '"The Last Hurrah" drew on a common phrase in the English lexicon to mean a swan song or, in politics, the last campaign of a politician. The success of

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