Lorcan Sherlock was born in Clontarf, Dublin in 1874, and was a son of Thomas Sherlock, a member of Dublin City Council who was also a judge, journalist, poet and musician. One of four brothers, he belonged to a family that distinguished themselves in a variety of fields. Two of his brothers were noted journalists while his brother Gerald Sherlock (1876-1942) was the first Dublin City Manager, serving from 1930 to 1936.

Like Bertie Ahern, Lorcan Sherlock was a proud Dublin Northsider and served on the City Council from 1907 to 1915. At a time when many of the members of Dublin City Council were from outside the city, he stood out as one of the most significant Dublin-born political figures. A staunch supporter of Parnell and Home Rule, he was on terms of familiarity with John Redmond but was particularly close to Joseph Devlin, the prominent Irish Party MP and leader of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Indeed after Independence, Sherlock unsuccessfully tried to persuade Devlin, then a member of the Northern Ireland parliament, to stand for the Dáil. Although never an MP himself, Sherlock was one of the most prominent members of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

 

 The climax of his career was his period as Lord Mayor of Dublin for three consecutive terms (1912-15). His term of office coincided with many stirring events, including the Home Rule crisis of 1912-14, the 1913 Lockout, and the outbreak of World War One. When Sir Hugh Lane, a wealthy British art collector and nephew of Lady Gregory donated a magnificent collection of paintings to the city of Dublin, a major controversy ensued as to whether Dublin Corporation could afford to pay for a municipal art gallery. This became one of the most notorious public rows in twentieth-century Ireland and resulted in W.B. Yeats condemning the Dublin employer class is his poem September 1913, both for their refusal to finance the municipal art gallery and their conduct towards their workers at the time of the Dublin Lockout. Although Yeats condemned them as being only interested in making money ‘to fumble in a greasy till and add the halfpence to the pence,’ Sherlock was in fact one of Lane’s strongest supporters. Another literary connection was provided by Sherlock featuring in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

 

A man of conservative social views, Sherlock disapproved of James Larkin and socialism but condemned the conduct of the police in the course of the Dublin Lockout. Sherlock was also a very close friend of Dr. William Walsh, the powerful Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and visited him so frequently that his enemies called him the ‘lay pope.’ When the AMAI was founded in the Mansion House Dublin in 1912, Sherlock presided at its inaugural meeting and served as the first president from 1912 to 1915.

 

In 1915, Sherlock stepped down from the City Council in order to take up the post of Sheriff of Dublin City, a position which he held from 1915 to 1944. He was also a successful businessman who was director of several companies including Hibernian Insurance and the Dublin Gas Company. He was also a noted sportsman who played cricket in his youth, was involved in horse racing and took up golf later in life. He served as President of the Hermitage Golf Club and was also connected with other clubs, including Portmarnock. In 1934, he donated the Lorcan Sherlock Cup, which is presented to the winner of the annual golf competition for Leinster senior rugby clubs. Sherlock’s daughter (who was in fact his only child) was also a noted golfer who won an Irish Ladies’ Championship at Portmarnock. Sherlock received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin, and thereafter always styled himself Doctor Sherlock. A man of considerable wealth, he lived in Ballsbridge and died at his residence there in 1945 aged seventy-one.

 

A native of County Armagh and a draper by profession, Crawford McCullagh was a prominent businessman and director of several businesses in Belfast, including Maguire and Patterson and also owned McCullagh and Co., a large drapery store which he sold in 1923 to devote himself to politics. A Unionist, he served for forty years on Belfast City Council (1906-46) and in 1911, he was the High Sheriff of Belfast. Before partition, he served as the second president of the AMAI from 1915 to 1916. He was knighted in 1915 and created a baronet in 1935. He was also a member of the Northern Ireland parliament from 1921 to 1925.

McCullagh is the longest serving Mayor or Lord Mayor in the history of Belfast. He was Lord Mayor from 1914 to 1917, 1931 to 1942 and 1943 to 1946, a total of seventeen years. The post of Lord Mayor gave him an automatic seat in the Northern Ireland Senate, of which he was Deputy Speaker from 1939 to 1941. In 1938, he negotiated the donation of Belfast Castle and 200 acres surrounding it to the City of Belfast.