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Shamrock Rovers F.C.

Shamrock Rovers Football Club (Cumann Peile Ruagairí na Seamróige) is an Irish professional football club based in Tallaght, South Dublin. The club's senior team competes in the League of Ireland Premier Division and it is the most successful club in the Republic of Ireland. The club has won the League of Ireland title a record 21 times and the FAI Cup a record 25 times. Shamrock Rovers have supplied more players to the Republic of Ireland national football team (64) than any other club. In All-Ireland competitions, such as the Intercity Cup, they hold the record for winning the most titles, having won seven cups overall.

Shamrock Rovers were founded in Ringsend, Dublin. The official date of the club's foundation is 1899. They won the League title at the first attempt in the 1922–23 season and established themselves as Republic of Ireland most successful club by 1949, winning 44 major trophies. During the 1950s, the club won three League titles and two FAI Cups and became the first Irish team to compete in European competition, playing in the European Cup in 1957.

They followed this by winning a record six FAI Cups in succession in the 1960s, when they were also one of the European club teams that spent the summer of 1967 in the United States, founding the United Soccer Association. They won the first of four League titles in a row in 1983–84, after a long decline.

The club played at Glenmalure Park from 1926 to 1987 when the owners controversially sold the stadium to property developers. Shamrock Rovers spent the next 22 years playing home games at various venues around Dublin and on occasions, Ireland. They moved into Tallaght Stadium prior to the start of the 2009 season after years of delays and legal disputes, during which time the club's supporters saved them from extinction.

Shamrock Rovers wore green and white striped jerseys until 1926 when they adopted the green and white hooped strip that they have worn ever since. Their club badge has featured a football and a shamrock throughout their history. The club has a relatively large support base and shares an intense rivalry with Bohemian Football Club and St Patrick's Athletic. On 25 August 2011 Rovers became the first Irish side to reach the group stages of either of the top two European competitions by beating Partizan Belgrade in the play-off round of the Europa League.

Foundation and early history
The foundation of Shamrock Rovers is disputed amongst supporters of the club. No official documentation of the era exists. For many years the earliest known mention of the club in the newspaper archives at the National Library of Ireland came from 1901 and an article in the club programme from 28 December 1941 claims that the club was founded in this year. Research by the Shamrock Rovers Heritage Trust uncovered a very brief report in the Evening Herald from April 1899 on a match between Shamrock Rovers and Rosemount, which has established that the club was in existence from at least that time. The only two certainties about the origins of the club in relation to what year they were formed are the facts that, Rovers played only exhibition games for the first two years of their existence and the club registered with the Leinster Football Association in 1901. Essentially, the dispute is over whether the two years of exhibition games were played before or after the registration. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the date 1899 was written on the gates of Glenmalure Park but since the 1990s, 1901 had been adopted as the founding year by the various regimes which have run the club. In light of the discovery of evidence supporting a founding date before April 1899 the club opened an 1899 Suite in Tallaght Stadium in February 2017.

Shamrock Rovers originate from Ringsend, a Southside inner suburb of Dublin. The name of the club derives from Shamrock Avenue in Ringsend, where the first club rooms were secured. In September 1906, after a few seasons in operation, Rovers withdrew from the First Division of the Leinster Senior League. In 1914, they were resurrected and started playing their matches at Ringsend Park. On 17 April 1915, the side won the Irish Junior Cup, which was then the top junior competition organised on an all-Ireland basis. They defeated Derry Celtic Swifts 1–0 in the final, played in Dublin. However, Ringsend park became unavailable within two years. The club disbanded and played only exhibition games for the next five years. In 1921, Shamrock Rovers were resurrected once more, as a Leinster Senior League outfit, and reached the final of the inaugural FAI Cup, where they lost to St James's Gate in a fixture marred by crowd violence. The following season, the club won the League of Ireland title at the first attempt, going 21 games unbeaten and scoring 77 goals. In 1924, an influential member of the League winning side of two years previous, Bob Fullam, returned to Rovers from Leeds United and combined with John Flood, John Fagan and Billy Farrell to complete the forward line known as The Four Fs. By the conclusion of their fifth season in the League of Ireland, the club had won three League titles and one FAI Cup. During the 1930s, the club won a further three League titles and five FAI Cups with Irish internationals, Paddy Moore and Jimmy Dunne playing key roles in their success, supported by crowds of up to 30,000 people at Glenmalure Park. By 1949, Shamrock Rovers had established themselves as Ireland's most successful football club. Their 44 major trophies included six League of Ireland titles, 11 FAI Cups, seven League of Ireland Shields, six Leinster Senior Cups, two Dublin City Cups, four Intercity Cups and eight President's Cups.

Coad's Colts
In November 1949, following the death of Jimmy Dunne, Paddy Coad accepted the position of player-manager having played with the club for almost eight years, in which time he had established himself as one of the best players in the League of Ireland. Coad opted for a radical youth policy and over the course of his first three years in charge, signed virtually the entire schoolboy international side to Rovers. He employed revolutionary training methods with extra emphasis on technical skill and possession which resulted in a fast, passing style of football that contributed significantly to the development of the game in Ireland. In 1954, the club won the League of Ireland for the first time in fifteen years, while Paddy Ambrose finished the season as the team's leading scorer. Led by players like Liam Tuohy and Coad himself, the team known as Coad's Colts proceeded to win two more league titles and two FAI Cups, concluding the golden era of Irish football as one of its most successful teams.

Six in a row
After the departure of Coad in 1960 and an unsuccessful season under Albie Murphy, Seán Thomas took on the role of rebuilding the Rovers team which had suffered from the break-up of Coad's Colts. Paddy Ambrose and Ronnie Nolan had remained with the club and were joined by a large selection of signings including Irish internationals, Frank O’Neill and Johnny Fullam. The decision by Liam Tuohy to return to the club as captain, after four successful years at Newcastle United, effectively saw the completion of Thomas' side. The club won every domestic honour except the Top Four Competition in the 1963–64 season and were narrowly defeated by holders and eventual finalists, Valencia, in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Thomas, however, quit the Hoops at the end of the season following a dispute with the Cunninghams (Owners) over team selection. Liam Tuohy took over as player-manager and led the club to a further five FAI Cups in succession, completing a series of six, including a 3–0 defeat of League of Ireland champions, Waterford in 1968, in front of 40,000 people at Dalymount Park. The summer of 1967 had been spent in the United States, participating in the foundation of the United Soccer Association, where Rovers represented Boston as Boston Rovers. The 1968–69 season saw Mick Leech score a total of 56 goals for the club, including two in the last FAI Cup final of the Six in a Row period, against Cork Celtic.

Decline
The Hoops' defeat to Shelbourne in the first round of the FAI Cup in 1970, their first defeat in 32 Cup games over seven years, marked the start of the decline in the fortunes of the club. Despite only narrowly missing out on the League title in the 1970–71 season in controversial circumstances, the next twelve years proved to be a disaster for the club both on and off the field. On 25 April 1971, Rovers met Cork Hibs in Dalymount in a League play-off watched by 28,000 people. Their pre-match buildup was thrown into disarray when players and directors clashed over win bonuses. Hibs won the play-off 3–1. The next season, the Cunninghams, now under the control of sons Arthur and Des, sold the club to three brothers from Dublin; Paddy, Barton and Louis Kilcoyne. The Kilcoynes had witnessed decades of huge attendances at Irish football games and sought to take over the club primarily for business reasons. However, within the space of five years, the large crowds disappeared from Irish football stadia and combined with the demise of Drumcondra and Cork Hibs, the decline in fortunes of a number of top clubs and the lack of action by the FAI, the League of Ireland was plunged into a drastic decline. Faced with dwindling attendances, the Kilcoynes decided to starve the club and sold off senior players who were replaced by junior footballers. On a tour of Japan in 1975, Mick Meagan and Theo Dunne's young side defeated the Japanese national team 3–2 in front of 60,000 spectators at the Olympic Stadium, but that victory was the highlight of a season that saw the team finish bottom of the table and re-apply for admission into the League of Ireland.

In 1976, Meagan and Dunne resigned from the club and were replaced by Seán Thomas, the architect of the Six in a Row side, who with limited resources, re-signed Johnny Fullam and Mick Leech, as well as John Conway from Bohemians. Rovers finished the 1976–77 season in eleventh but won the club's only League of Ireland Cup, with Leech's 250th career goal proving the difference against Sligo. In July 1977, Irish international player-manager John Giles returned to Dublin to take up the same role at Rovers. The Kilcoynes implemented a full-time policy and unveiled plans to rebuild Glenmalure Park as a 50,000 all-seater stadium as well as turning the club into a school of excellence for Irish football, capable of challenging for European honours. Giles signed Irish internationals, Ray Treacy, Eamon Dunphy and Paddy Mulligan to complement the youth setup. In his first season in charge, the club won their 21st FAI Cup, defeating Sligo in a controversial final, but despite that success and emphatic victories in European competition against Apoel Nicosia and Fram Reykjavík, Giles' conservative approach based on possession football proved unsuccessful and on 3 February 1983, he resigned.

Four in a row
In the summer of 1983, Jim McLaughlin replaced Noel Campbell as Rovers' manager, after a successful period at Dundalk. Louis Kilcoyne made money available to McLaughlin who responded by selling and releasing almost the entire squad he had inherited from the Giles era, including fans' favourite, Alan O'Neill, while retaining the services of Liam Buckley, Harry Kenny, Alan Campbell and Peter Eccles. He brought in what was effectively a League of Ireland XI which included Jody Byrne and Noel King from Dundalk, Mick Neville from Drogheda, the trio of Eviston, Brady and O'Brien from Bohemians, and Anto Whelan and Neville Steedman from Manchester United and Thurles Town. On 1 April 1984, the club clinched their first League of Ireland title in 20 years with a 3–1 defeat of Shelbourne and 14 days later against Limerick at Glenmalure Park, midfielder and captain, Pat Byrne was presented with the trophy. Following that success, the club's two star strikers, Campbell and Buckley, were transferred to Racing de Santander and K.S.V. Waregem. McLaughlin replaced them with Mick Byrne and Noel Larkin and the pairing proved successful as the club won a further three League titles and three FAI Cups, with Byrne finishing the final season of the Four in a Row period as the League's top goalscorer. Dermot Keely managed and played for the club that year after McLaughlin's decision to transfer to Derry City The Hoops won 74 League games out of 100 from August 1983 to April 1987, losing only 11.

The homeless years (1987–2009)
Shortly after winning their 14th League title, Louis Kilcoyne announced that the Kilcoynes were selling Glenmalure Park, which they had recently purchased from the Jesuits. The team played the entire 1987–88 season in an almost empty Tolka Park as a result of a boycott called for by the Shamrock Rovers Supporters Club and KRAM (Keep Rovers at Milltown), which was observed by the vast majority of Hoops fans. Following the completion of the boycott season in Tolka, the Kilcoynes sold the football club to Dublin businessman John McNamara, who put forward a controversial proposal to move in with Bohemians at Dalymount Park. KRAM congregated to vote on whether to lift the boycott and on the proposal to move to Dalymount. Both motions were passed and the club spent the next two seasons at the Phibsboro venue, with an unrecognisable side playing in front of small attendances.

As the 1989–90 season concluded, the club announced that they were moving to the RDS Arena in Ballsbridge, located halfway between Ringsend and Milltown on the Southside of Dublin. On 30 September 1990, the RDS played host to Shamrock Rovers against St. Patrick's Athletic, in front of approximately 25,000 people. The fixture started a six-year period at the venue that included a League title-winning season in 1993–94. Ray Treacy managed the League winning side which included Paul Osam, Gino Brazil, John Toal, Alan Byrne and Stephen Geoghegan, who ended the season as top goalscorer. The next season, a number of key players were released as Treacy and McNamara enforced a tight budget and opted to rebuild the side with young players. The team began the season with a heavy defeat to Górnik Zabrze in the UEFA Cup and struggled their way to a midtable standing. They started the 1995–96 season badly and by late that season, after almost two years of growing supporter discontent at the running of the club, Treacy resigned, with McNamara following him shortly afterwards. One of McNamara's final acts was to appoint Alan O'Neill and Terry Eviston, who had both returned to the club in 1993, as joint managers of the side. They succeeded in removing the threat of relegation and almost guided the team to European qualification.

Long road to Tallaght
As the 1995–96 season concluded, John McNamara sold the club to Premier Computers, headed by Alan McGrath. McGrath unveiled a plan to build a state-of-the-art stadium in the Dublin southwest suburb of Tallaght, and employed Pat Byrne as commercial manager. However, after a couple of weeks and a loss in the first game of the season, O’Neill was dismissed, while Eviston resigned in solidarity. Byrne was appointed manager of the side playing in Tolka Park once again, and they struggled through the season with the League's joint top scorer, Tony Cousins playing a leading role in avoiding relegation. In May 1997, Alan McGrath resigned as club chairman and was replaced by Brian Kearney, also of Premier Computers, who succeeded in acquiring planning permission for the new stadium in January 1998. However, the permission was delayed by objections until November 1998, by which time Joe Colwell had replaced Kearney as chairman and ended Premier Computers' involvement with the club. On the pitch, Mick Byrne guided Rovers to an Intertoto Cup spot in 1997–98 and an eighth-place finish, the next season. He was replaced by Damien Richardson, who managed the club during their stay at Morton Stadium before his dismissal in April 2002, after a disagreement with Colwell. By that time, a half-built shell of a stadium stood at the Tallaght site; Mulden International Ltd, recruited by Colwell to complete the project, had pulled out of building the stadium. They leased it to a separate company, transferring the responsibility, and focused on four acres that they had retained for themselves.

Examinership and survival
Tony Maguire replaced Colwell as chairman and began the search for potential investors. In his first season as manager, Liam Buckley guided the club to the FAI Cup final and European qualification, as the team played at Richmond Park. The 2003 season was marked by the club's worsening finances as a deal with potential investor, Conor Clarkson was held up by Mulden's reluctance to sell their land. Having successfully applied for a one-year planning extension in October 2003, the club applied for a further extension a few months after Buckley's departure in September 2004. SDCC refused the application, but clarified their position by confirming their intention to build the stadium in partnership with the club, once the issue of ownership had been resolved. The trustees of the 400 Club (supporters group) informed the board of directors that they were no longer willing to bankroll their ownership of Shamrock Rovers.

Faced with the choice of remaining with Clarkson, whose plans were nullified by SDCC's decision, or cooperating with the council, Maguire chose the former and with Mulden's financing, initiated a High Court judicial review of the decision. The review failed and on 11 April 2005, facing debts of over two million Euro, the club entered into examinership. The 400 Club agreed to completely bankroll the club during the process. On 5 May 2005, Tony Maguire resigned on request by the FAI, who had discovered that the club had submitted their 2003 accounts in their application for a licence for the 2005 season. This resulted in a points deduction and subsequent relegation under Roddy Collins. The examinership concluded in July 2005 with the examiner accepting the 400 Club's bid for Shamrock Rovers, saving the club from extinction, and the supporters-owned club won promotion at the first attempt in 2006 under Pat Scully. The 2007 and 2008 seasons at Tolka Park were ones of overachievement and stability, but the major event of the period was the recommencement of building on the stadium after more than two years of legal disputes between the council and Thomas Davis CLG.

Tallaght
The 2009 season proved to be a progressive one for the club, starting with the completion of the stadium and ending with a second-place finish and qualification to the Europa League under the management of Michael O'Neill. Tallaght Stadium hosted the highest attendances in the League of Ireland, regularly selling out its capacity. The season was also marked by the visit of Real Madrid to Tallaght Stadium, where they defeated The Hoops 1–0 in front of a record attendance of 10,900 people. The team entered the 2010–11 Europa League in the second qualifying round and defeated Bnei Yehuda of Israel to progress to a third qualifying round tie against Juventus. The Italian side won the tie 3–0 on aggregate. Shamrock Rovers finished the 2010 season as champions, ending a 16-year drought by narrowly beating Bohemians to the title on goal difference. Rovers also got to the FAI Cup final, the first in the Aviva Stadium, where, in front of a crowd of over 30,000, they were defeated on penalties by Sligo Rovers.

2011 season
In 2011 the club played its first-ever Champions League game and its first game in the highest level of European Cup Competition since the 1987–88 European Cup, beating Estonian Champions Flora Tallinn in the 2011–12 Champions League Second qualifying round. They accomplished this feat by triumphing 1–0 in the first leg at Tallaght Stadium and drawing 0–0 in the second leg in Estonia to advance 1–0 on aggregate. Rovers were then beaten 3–0 on aggregate in the next round by Danish Champions Copenhagen but advanced to the 2011–12 Europa League Play-off round. There they were drawn against Serbian Champions FK Partizan, whom they defeated 3–2 on aggregate (2–1 on the night after extra time) to reach the group stages of the Europa League. This marked a famous victory for Irish football, as it was the first time an Irish club had reached the group stages of a major European competition. Rovers also won the All Ireland Setanta Sports Cup in 2011 by defeating Dundalk in the final at Tallaght Stadium. Rovers wrapped up a second league title in a row with a last-minute victory over UCD at Belfield on 25 October 2011.

Bradley era
The club suffered something of a lean spell after the highs of the 2011 season. Michael O'Neill departed to manage the Northern Ireland national team and was replaced by Stephen Kenny. However, Kenny was fired after less than a full season in 2012. His successor Trevor Croly also did not last a full season as manager despite winning two minor trophies, the League Cup and Setanta Cup in 2013. Pat Fenlon a former Rovers player was appointed the following season but he too failed to win major trophies. In 2016 he was replaced by Stephen Bradley, another former player, who at that time was coaching one of the club's underage sides. It took some time for Bradley to rebuild a winning team to challenge the then-dominant Dundalk.

However, through developing young players and astute signings such as Jack Byrne, Rovers steadily improved under Bradley's management. In 2019 Bradley's team won the FAI Cup, defeating Dundalk after penalties in the final, before a crowd of over 33,000, the first time that Rovers had won the Cup since 1987. The following season, a campaign truncated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Rovers won a shortened league season unbeaten. In the Europa League qualifying rounds Rovers were narrowly beaten 2–0 by Italian giants AC Milan. Dundalk denied Bradley's team a 'double' however, beating them in the FAI Cup Final, which due to the pandemic, was played behind closed doors. In 2021, despite losing star players such as Jack Byrne and Aaron McEneff, before the start of the season, Shamrock Rovers retained the title, finishing sixteen points ahead of nearest rival St Patrick's Athletic and picking up the trophy before a full house in Tallaght Stadium against Drogheda United. In 2022, Rovers won their third league title in a row, picking up the trophy in a 1–0 win against Derry City. The club also qualified for the group stages of the UEFA Conference League for the first time. Attendances also continued to improve, with an average of more than 6,000 fans attending home games in Tallaght stadium in 2022. In 2023 Shamrock Rovers again won the league title, equalling the record of four league championships in a row set by the club in the 1980s. However the team's European performance was disappointing, losing convincingly on aggregate to Icelandic side Breidablik in the Champions League qualifiers and Hungarian champions Ferencváros in the Europa league.

Colours and badge
Until 1926, Shamrock Rovers wore green and white striped jerseys but following a suggestion by a committee member, John Sheridan, the club chose to adopt the green and white hooped strip. A close relationship existed between the club and Belfast Celtic and it was on account of this that the idea was formed. The first game featuring the new jerseys was against Bray Unknowns in a FAI Cup match on 9 January 1927 at Shelbourne Park. The Hoops lost the game 3–0 and senior members of the club considered abandoning the new strip. Despite this loss, the team continued to wear green and white hoops and have done ever since. The 2007 season was the first season since the hoops were introduced that they were not continuous around the main body of the jersey. The style of the shirt sleeves has been changed on numerous occasions. The away colours of the club have varied over time. In the early 1980s, the club had a yellow away jersey. In the mid-1990s, a hooped purple jersey was adopted. In 2011, the team wore an all-black away strip.

The club emblem features a football and a shamrock and has done so throughout the history of the club. Minor alterations to the club badge have included changing the style of the shamrock and the width of the diagonal lines. In 2005, a star was added above the badge to signify the first 10 League of Ireland titles won by the club. After the takeover of the club by the supporters, black became the club's third official colour in recognition of the loss of Glenmalure Park. It was also decided that the number 12 would no longer be worn by any Shamrock Rovers player and instead would represent the club's supporters.

Glenmalure Park
On 11 September 1926, Shamrock Rovers played their first game at Glenmalure Park, Milltown against Dundalk, having previously played at Ringsend Park, Shelbourne Park, Windy Arbour and a different pitch behind the famous Milltown one. The official opening took place on Sunday, 19 September 1926 as Belfast Celtic provided the opposition in an exhibition game. When the Cunninghams acquired the club in the 1930s, the stadium was named Glenmalure Park in honour of their ancestral home in Glenmalure. They completed the stadium with the addition of terraces, one of which was covered. The stadium remained essentially unaltered from then until its demolition in 1990, excluding the destruction of a small terrace and the erection of floodlights in the 1980s. Its capacity was approximately 20,000 for most of its existence, its largest recorded attendance being 28,000, set against Waterford in 1968. Larger, unreported, attendances were present at the venue before then.

In 1987, the Kilcoynes decided to sell the stadium to property developers, having recently purchased it from the Jesuits. The last game at Glenmalure Park was an FAI Cup semi-final between Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers on 12 April 1987. The game saw a pitch invasion by supporters protesting against the sale of the stadium. The next season, the supporters formed an association called Keep Rovers at Milltown and placed a picket on home games at Tolka Park, effectively bankrupting the club's owners. They accumulated funds, through supporter contributions, in an effort to purchase the stadium but failed to match the offer of a property developer to whom the Kilcoynes eventually sold the site. After a lengthy appeals process, Glenmalure Park was demolished in 1990 to be replaced by an apartment complex.

Tallaght Stadium
In the 1990s, Shamrock Rovers were granted land in the Dublin suburb of Tallaght to build a new stadium. On 30 March 2000, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern turned the sod at the site. However, work on the stadium ceased in 2001 and in March 2005, South Dublin County Council announced that they were taking back the land that they had granted to the club, as the conditions of the planning permission had not been met. A public consultation process was initiated in July 2005 and a resolution was passed in December 2005 to alter the stadium to accommodate senior GAA games while still having Shamrock Rovers as the preferred tenants. This decision was subject to additional government funding. This funding was not made available and on 13 January 2006 the council voted to proceed with the original plan.

This second vote was challenged by a local Gaelic Athletic Association club, Thomas Davis who wanted the vote on 13 January 2006 declared illegal thus forcing the county council to build the GAA stadium. Thomas Davis claimed that the capacity of the stadium (initially 6,000, ultimately 10,000) would not be affected by the change, the other parties involved disputed this and argued that the capacity would be reduced. Requests under the freedom of information act to both South Dublin County Council and the Department of Sport showed that Thomas Davis had not submitted any plans showing that capacity would not be affected.

Thomas Davis GAA club instituted judicial review proceedings in the High Court in May 2006. Their main argument was that the decision of the council on 13 February 2006 to revert to the original plans for the stadium, which did not include a senior GAA pitch, was unlawful. Their submission on the technical point was accompanied by cultural arguments that 'the youth of Tallaght will be restricted to a diet of Association football' and that a soccer-only ground would place the 'applicant at a severe disadvantage in attracting the youth of Tallaght to the club, the sport and the GAA culture. The stadium, however, with the original design, could accommodate youth GAA games as the pitch used at this level fits within the stadium's dimensions. It was only adult GAA games that would not have been facilitated. The then Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, John O'Donoghue, consistently supported the government's decision to support the stadium with soccer pitch dimensions, and claimed that the GAA were stalling the project which he believed they had no need for on top of their own site in Rathcoole. On 14 December 2006 the Football Association of Ireland pledged financial assistance for the Hoops' High Court battle involving Thomas Davis.

The judicial review began on 20 April 2007 and concluded on 14 December 2007. In the High Court decision Mr. Justice Roderick Murphy found in favour of South Dublin Co. Council and Shamrock Rovers. South Dublin County Council were correct in their 13 February 2006 vote to proceed with the stadium as originally planned. An application by Thomas Davis for leave to appeal this decision to the Supreme court was refused by Judge Murphy on 25 January 2008. Building commenced on the stadium on 6 May 2008. Shamrock Rovers played their first 'home' game in over 20 years in the stadium in March 2009.

Ownership
Shamrock Rovers F.C. is partially owned (25%) by the Shamrock Rovers Members Club, with businessman Ray Wilson owning 50% of the club since 2016, a further 25% is owned by businessman Dermot Desmond, who purchased the stake in 2019. The Shamrock Rovers Members Club was originally formed as the 400 Club in November 2002, by the then privately owned football club's board of directors, to raise funds through the fan base, with the sole purpose of facilitating a mortgage for the development of the stalled stadium project in Tallaght. The monthly membership fee was set at €40. However, it became apparent to the members that the funds raised were being used for purposes outside of the stated objective. As a result, the membership took control of the 400 Club, adopted a transparent structure and constitution, and declared itself totally independent of the then board of Shamrock Rovers. The 400 Club consortium played a crucial role in the survival of Shamrock Rovers when the club entered examinership in April 2005. They paid off a portion of the club's debts and assumed responsibility for running it. After the successful acquisition of the club through the examinership process, the 400 Club Trustees became the Board of Directors of Shamrock Rovers Football Club and began the process of building a sustainable club through sensible business practices. Numerous clubs and supporters groups subsequently sought their advice with regard to using the model of the 400 club elsewhere. At the annual meeting of the 400 Club in 2006, the members voted to rename it as the SRFC Members Club, reflecting the reality of their ownership of the football club. At the 2008 meeting, the monthly membership fee was increased to €50. In January 2012, there were more than 400 members of the club. Membership is open to all.

Supporters and rivalries
The majority of Shamrock Rovers supporters originate from the Southside of Dublin, but the club attracts fans from across the city and country. Since its foundation, the club has maintained a proud Irish identity, and their supporters reflect this in the flags and banners they display. Their support base contains a number of clubs dedicated to supporting the team at away games. It also contains an ultras group, which was the first formed in Ireland, the SRFC Ultras, who produce choreographed displays of support at games. They have connections with other European groups including supporters of Roma, Hammarby and Panathinaikos.

Until the 1970s, Glenmalure Park regularly hosted attendances in the region of 20,000 people, but as the majority of the Irish public turned its back on Irish football, those numbers declined and despite winning the League of Ireland four times in succession in the 1980s, the attendances for the period averaged approximately a quarter of that figure. The sale of the stadium contributed to a further decline in support. During the homeless years, particularly those spent on the Northside, attendances continued to fall with the exception of those recorded during the club's residence at the RDS, which included an opening attendance of 22,000. Prior to the relocation to Tallaght, the club's support base had been reduced to a hardcore group of over a thousand people. As of 2010, this included approximately 2,700 season ticket holders. The end of COVID-19 pandemic limitations on outdoor events coincided with a major boost in league attendances generally, even compared to pre=pandemic numbers, from which Rovers also benefited. As of 2023, Rovers' average attendance stood at 6,109, the largest in the league.

Throughout their history, Shamrock Rovers have shared many rivalries of differing importance and intensity. The oldest such rivalry is that shared with Shelbourne, formed on the basis of the clubs' foundations in Ringsend. It remains as a secondary rivalry of similar importance to the local derby contested with St. Patrick's Athletic. During the 1950s and 1960s, the club's principal rival was the now-defunct, Drumcondra. In the 1970s, they were replaced as the major club on the Northside by Bohemians. Since then, the relatively minor rivalry that existed between Shamrock Rovers and Bohemians has developed into a classic rivalry, producing intense games and large attendances.

Shamrock Rovers II
Throughout its history Rovers have entered reserve teams in various leagues including the Leinster Senior League Senior Division, the League of Ireland B Division, the A Championship and the League of Ireland U19 Division. In 2014 they played in the League of Ireland First Division. In January 2020, it was announced that a team with the name Shamrock Rovers II would be entering the 2020 League of Ireland First Division

Youth setup
The current schoolboys' sections of Shamrock Rovers date back to 1996 when Rovers and Tallaght Town AFC merged to form a new section to serve the Tallaght area of South West Dublin. Tallaght Town initially remained in operation as a limited company and as trustee of a training facility used by the youth teams at Shamrock Rovers. The partnership between the two clubs broke up again in the mid-2000s, with Tallaght Town retaining the training facility at Carolan Park in Kiltipper. However, the schoolboy or underage section remained with Shamrock Rovers and was fully absorbed into the club once Rovers began playing at Tallaght Stadium in 2009. From then until 2014, Shamrock Rovers underage teams continued to play and train at Tallaght Town's grounds at Kiltipper. However, in that year Rovers acquired their own training ground at Roadstone in Clondalkin, and the club's underage as well as first-team moved their training base there. Shamrock Rovers also opened their own football academy at the site. The Roadstone facility has an AstroTurf pitch and two hybrid pitches (mainly grass) which were built to replace the existing grass pitches during 2016–17. The training ground was officially opened in 2017. As of February 2023, former player Shane Robinson is the director of the academy.

Over 200 underage players play for Shamrock Rovers. The club has teams at every age from under-8 up to under-13 playing in the Dublin and District Schoolboy League as well as U14, U15, U17 & U19 male teams in the elite underage FAI National League. In addition, there is an under-17 women's team and an amputee team. A Sunday morning academy, for children between the ages of 4 and 6, is also in operation. The club's youth teams have participated in the Milk Cup and Dallas Cup. In recent years, the Shamrock Rovers Academy has successfully brought many young players through to the professional game including Irish international goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu, who was transferred to Manchester City FC and Kevin Zefi to Inter Milan, as well as players such as Trevor Clarke, Aaron Bolger, Aidomo Emakhu and Justin Ferizaj who have made it through to the Rovers first team.

The club operates scholarships covering all levels of education. Players at the academy also receive tuition for the Leaving Certificate at Ashfield College with whom Rovers have a partnership. The club also runs a scheme for transition year students that allows one age group (Under 15s) to train at Roadstone each week morning and study in the afternoons in a classroom at Roadstone. the club also has a community officer and has partnerships with underage football clubs and schools in the local area.

Senior
1983–84, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1993–94, 2010, 2011, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 1956–57, 1957–58, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1967–68
 * League of Ireland/League of Ireland Premier Division: 21 (record)
 * 1922–23, 1924–25, 1926–27, 1931–32, 1937–38, 1938–39, 1953–54, 1956–57, 1958–59, 1963–64 Star*.svg
 * FAI Cup: 25 (record)
 * 1924–25, 1928–29, 1929–30, 1930–31, 1931–32, 1932–33, 1935–36, 1939–40, 1943–44, 1944–45, 1947–48, 1954–55, 1955–56, 1961–62, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1965–66, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1968–69, 1977–78, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 2019
 * League of Ireland First Division
 * 2006
 * League of Ireland Shield: 18 (record)
 * 1924–25, 1926–27, 1931–32, 1932–33, 1934–35, 1937–38, 1941–42, 1949–50, 1951–52, 1954–55, 1955–56,
 * League of Ireland Cup: 2
 * 1976–77, 2013
 * LFA President's Cup: 21 (record)
 * 1929–30, 1932–33, 1940–41, 1941–42, 1943–44, 1944–45, 1945–46, 1948–49, 1954–55, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1959–60, 1962–63, 1968–69, 1969–70, 1970–71, 1972–73, 1984–85, 1985–86, 1986–87, 1987–88
 * Dublin City Cup: 10
 * 1944–45, 1947–48, 1952–53, 1954–55, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1959–60, 1963–64, 1966–67, 1983–84
 * Top Four Cup: 3
 * 1955–56, 1957–58, 1965–66
 * FAI Super Cup: 1
 * 1998–99
 * Setanta Sports Cup: 2
 * 2011, 2013
 * Blaxnit Cup: 1
 * 1967–68
 * Dublin and Belfast Inter-City Cup: 4
 * 1942–43, 1945–46, 1946–47, 1948–49
 * Tyler Cup: 1
 * 1977–78
 * President of Ireland's Cup: 1
 * 2022
 * Leinster Senior League: 1
 * 1921–22
 * Leinster Senior Cup: 18
 * 1922–23, 1926–27, 1928–29, 1929–30, 1932–33, 1937–38, 1952–53, 1954–55, 1955–56, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1963–64, 1968–69, 1981–82, 1984–85, 1996–97, 2011–12, 2012–13

Retired numbers
12 – 12th man

European record
Shamrock Rovers have a long history in European competition. In the 1957–58 season they were the first League of Ireland side to enter European competition (Glenavon from the Irish League having entered in the same season ) and featured regularly in the 1960s and 1980s. The club has had some relative success with victories in the Intertoto-Cup and the Europa League. Throughout their participation Rovers have beaten teams from Luxembourg, Cyprus, Iceland and Germany, and were the first Irish club to beat teams from Turkey, Poland, Israel, Serbia Slovakia, Albania and Hungary. Their first victory in the UEFA Champions League came in a 1–0 victory in the 2011–12 qualifying phase against FC Flora Tallinn at Tallaght Stadium.

Their biggest win was a 7–0 aggregate victory (3–0 away, 4–0 home) over Fram Reykjavik in the UEFA Cup first round in September 1982, which remains a record for League of Ireland clubs in European competition.

On 25 August 2011, they became the first Irish team to qualify for the UEFA Europa League group stage when they defeated Partizan Belgrade 2–1 after extra-time in Serbia, for a 3–2 aggregate victory.

Rovers qualified for the group stages of the 2022–23 UEFA Europa Conference League.

Overview
''Correct as of August 3, 2023

Matches

 * Notes
 * PR: Preliminary round
 * QR: Qualifying round
 * 1R: First round
 * 2R: Second round
 * 1Q: First qualifying round
 * 2Q: Second qualifying round
 * 3Q: Third qualifying round
 * PO: Play-off round

title: Shamrock Rovers F.C.


text:
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title: User:JesseW/monobook.css


text: Talk:Biotic

title: Talk:Biotic


text:
Dianne Haskett

Dianne Louise Haskett (born March 4, 1955) is a Canadian lawyer, politician, and diplomat who served as the mayor of London, Ontario, Canada, serving from 1994 to 2000, and later ran unsuccessfully as the Conservative candidate in the 2006 federal by-election in the riding of London North Centre, placing third. She served two three-year mayoral terms, making a priority of downtown revitalization, heritage preservation, economic development, neighbourhood protection, protecting the environment, international relations, trade corridors' infrastructure, family values and anti-poverty initiatives.

Early years
Haskett was born and raised in London's Kensal Park district north of Springbank Drive.

Education
Haskett earned her B.A. from the University of Waterloo in 1974, her LL.B. from the University of Western Ontario in 1977, her LL.M. from the London School of Economics in 1979 and a second LLM from The George Washington University Law School in 2005. She has also studied law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies at Cambridge University, England.

She later founded her own law firm, Haskett Menear & Associates, which grew to include seven lawyers.

Mayor
From 1991 to 1994, Haskett was a member of London's elected board of control on city council.

Once Haskett was elected mayor in November 1994, defeating Deputy Mayor Jack Burghardt by slightly more than 1,000 votes, she stepped aside from her duties as a lawyer and as a partner in her law firm. She was re-elected in 1997 with a landslide victory.

Proclamation controversy
In 1995, Dianne Haskett refused to issue a Gay Pride Proclamation on the basis that she'd previously formulated a policy of declining controversial proclamations. London City Council also declined to issue the Gay Pride Proclamation by a vote of 13-5 (Mayor Haskett abstained from voting).

Richard Hudler, president of the Homophile Association of London, Ontario (HALO), filed an official complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1995, a tribunal of which ultimately determined in 1997 after a three-day public hearing that the City of London and Mayor Haskett had discriminated against HALO in the provision of a municipal service. Both the City of London and Haskett were fined $5,000.

Haskett placed a paid advertisement in The London Free Press on October 22, 1997, in which she stated that she believed the human rights case was unfairly decided and wrong in fact and law, and that the Tribunal's decision undermined the freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Constitution, notably freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

As an act of protest, she withdrew from her duties as mayor for three weeks (without pay) by staying in her Port Stanley, Ontario, townhouse and did not campaign during the last three weeks of the 1997 election. Deputy Mayor Grant Hopcroft, who became acting mayor during her absence, became an ardent supporter of issuing the gay pride proclamation after opposing it in 1995 in a recorded vote and refused to allow an appeal of the tribunal decision. Haskett was re-elected to a second term as mayor by a 2-1 landslide over Hopcroft. Haskett used no campaign signs during the 1997 civic election, instead using green-and-gold ribbons.

In 1996, Haskett was invited to bring greetings at an evangelical Christian rally in London called the "March of Jesus". One of the speakers was Rev. Miguel Sanchez of the London Gospel Temple, who prayed for deliverance "from the darkness and deception of the spirit of Islam". Haskett bowed her head during the prayer, and later said, "From what I know of him, I believed Rev. Sanchez and all other participants have a great love for all people". She later described Sanchez's comments as unfortunate. Haskett's role in this event was strongly criticized at the time by some members of London's Muslim community. In an effort to make sure that Londoners of all faiths felt appreciated and respected in the city, Haskett participated in a March for Tolerance from downtown to the London Muslim Mosque on Oxford Street West, where community leaders, including Haskett, addressed the crowd. She thanked the Muslim community for the many positive contributions they made to the city and urged people of all faiths to show love and respect for one another.

Moves to Washington, D.C.
Haskett's second, three-year term as mayor ended in December 2000 after she decided not to run again for re-election. She was succeeded by deputy mayor Anne Marie DeCicco-Best. Haskett, her husband and daughter moved to Fairfax, Virginia, working with two D.C. area law firms in planning and implementing strategic business development and providing assistance in their immigration and estate planning work.

Haskett completed her second Master's Law Degree in the Spring of 2005 from The George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. She also passed the Washington D.C. Bar exam and was sworn in as an attorney and member of the D.C. Bar in December, 2005.

Haskett has also been involved in a number of other projects in the Washington, D.C. area, including speechwriting, research and marketing and acting in an advisory capacity in Senate and Congressional campaigns. She volunteered as a communications adviser and researcher for Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole. She sat as a member of the board of trustees for the International Center for Religion & Diplomacy in Washington, D.C. and of Trinity Christian School of Fairfax, Virginia.

2006 federal by-election
On October 17, 2006, 1290 CJBK-AM, a London, Ontario radio station, and the A-Channel reported that Dianne Haskett had returned to London to seek the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in the London North Centre federal riding recently vacated by former Liberal MP Joe Fontana, who was a candidate for mayor of London in civic election 2006. This information was confirmed by Haskett on October 18, 2006.

On October 24, Haskett defeated Tom Weihmayr for the Conservative nomination in the federal riding of London North Centre. Haskett was widely considered to be the choice of the party hierarchy. The local riding association was ordered to hold the nomination meeting on October 24, 2006, a decision Haskett was informed of before the riding association was.

Key members of Haskett's campaign team were campaign manager Ryan Sparrow (previously the communications director for Environment Minister Rona Ambrose ), former law firm partner Michael Menear, former member of London city council Ted Wernham, London businessperson Randy Collins, and Dale Mackness.

Voting day for the federal by-election was November 27, 2006. With 253 of 253 polls reporting, the official by-election results from Elections Canada are as follows:

 * 38,123 of 89,139 registered electors voted (42.8 per-cent turnout)

Haskett returns to Washington
A letter to Londoners appears on Haskett's "information [Web] site" dated December 28, 2006, which says that she is returning to Washington, D.C. to be with her husband Jack and to continue her life there.

title: Dianne Haskett


text:
Category talk:Islands of New Zealand

Not a "Location"
This category should not be a category of Locations in New Zealand. the reason is simple. All places in New Zealand have two category designations: a location and a type.

The locations are the section of the country they are in: e.g., Otago, Auckland, Hawke's Bay - as explained in the text in this category. Items of New Zealand geography are thus divided by region. The types are the variety of geographical feature they are: e.g., Islands, lakes, towns. islands are thus quite clearly a type category.

All the islands in the category "Islands of New Zealand" are already listed by location - Stewart Island/Rakiura is in the "'Southland" section, for instance. As a type category, Islands of New Zealand belongs with all the other type categories in "New Zealand geography".

The only islands which belong in the location section are those outlying islands not in any of the other subcategories of new zealand location. That is why that category is a subcategory of both "Locations in New Zealand" (location) and "Islands of New Zealand" (type). Grutness|hello?

For further explanations, see the talk at WikiProject New Zealand places and Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board  Grutness|hello? 06:25, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: Category talk:Islands of New Zealand


text:
Dominique Jean Larrey

Dominique Jean, Baron Larrey (8 July 1766 – 25 July 1842) was a French surgeon and military doctor, who distinguished himself in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. An important innovator in battlefield medicine and triage, and the Inventor of the flying ambulance. he is often considered the first modern military surgeon.

Early life and career
Larrey was Born in Beaudéan, and the second of three children to Jean Larrey, a shoemaker, and Philippne Perès. His father died in 1780, When Larrey was only 13 years old. He was then sent to live with His Uncle Alexis, a surgeon in Toulouse.

After an 8-year apprenticeship, he went to Paris to study under Pierre-Joseph Desault, who was chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris. Larrey then went to Brest, where he was appointed surgeon in the navy and began lecturing. In 1787 he boarded a ship deployed to the defense of Newfoundland, and was, at nearly 21 years-old at the time, the youngest medical officer in the French Royal Navy. While in America, Larrey took an interest in the local environment, writing observations on the local flora, fauna, climate and manners, which were published years later in his  Mémoires de chirurgie militaire et campagnes du baron D.J. Larrey.

In 1789, Larrey was back in Paris, where he worked with Jean-Nicolas Corvisart, Xavier Bichat and Raphaël Bienvenu Sabatier in Les Invalides. On 14 July, during the Storming of the Bastille, he improvised an ambulance to treat the wounded.

Revolutionary Wars

A supporter of the ideas of the Revolution, Larrey joined the French Army of the Rhine in 1792, during the War of the First Coalition. In Mainz he met with Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring. During this time, Larrey initiated the modern method of army surgery, field hospitals and the system of army ambulance corps. After seeing the speed with which the carriages of the French flying artillery maneuvered across the battlefields, Larrey adapted them as ambulance volantes ("Flying ambulances") for rapid transport of the wounded and manned them with trained crews of drivers, corpsmen and litterbearers.

At the Battle of Metz (1793) Larrey successfully demonstrated the value of field ambulances. The quartermaster-general Jacques-Pierre Orillard de Villemanzy ordered prototypes to be built, after which ambulances would be supplied to all the Republic's armies. The politicians heard of this, and ordered a national contest to find the best design, thus delaying their delivery by over two years. Larrey also increased the mobility and improved the organization of field hospitals, effectively creating a forerunner of the modern MASH units. He established a rule for the triage of war casualties, treating the wounded according to the seriousness of their injuries and urgency of need for medical care, regardless of their rank or nationality. Soldiers of enemy armies, as well as those of the French and their allies, were treated.

In 1794 he was sent to Toulon, where he met for the first time with Napoleon Bonaparte. He married the painter Marie-Élisabeth Laville-Leroux. In Spain he fell ill and was sent back to Paris, where he worked as a professor of anatomy at the Val-de-Grâce Medical School for a short time, in 1796, before being appointed surgeon-in-chief of the Revolutionary armies in Italy.

Larrey departed with the Egyptian campaign in 1798. Following the victory at the Battle of Abukir, he established a medical school for army physicians in Cairo. Many of his patients at the time were affected by ophthalmy, a disease known in Europe since the Crusades, which Larrey studied and wrote about in his memoirs. He improved the transportation of wounded soldiers through the use of dromedaries, with two chests attached to each side of their hump to carry the wounded, instead of horses of difficult movement in the desert. He was wounded during the Siege of Acre. Larrey returned to France in October 1801, despite being offered to return alongside Napoleon.

Napoleonic Wars
Larrey was made a Commander of the Légion d'honneur on 12 May 1807. He joined in the Battle of Aspern-Essling, where he operated on Marshal Jean Lannes and amputated one of his legs in two minutes. He became the favorite of the Emperor, who commented, "If the army ever erects a monument to express its gratitude, it should do so in honor of Larrey", he was ennobled as a Baron on the field of Wagram in 1809. In 1811, Baron Larrey co-led the surgical team that performed a pre-anesthetic mastectomy on Frances Burney in Paris. His detailed account of this operation gives insight into early 19th century doctor-patient relationships, and early surgical methods in the home of the patient. Larrey was involved in the French invasion of Russia.

When Napoleon was sent to Elba, Larrey proposed to join him, but the former Emperor refused. At Waterloo in 1815 his courage under fire was noticed by the Duke of Wellington who ordered his soldiers not to fire in his direction so as to "give the brave man time to gather up the wounded" and saluted "the courage and devotion of an age that is no longer ours". Trying to escape to the French border, Larrey was taken prisoner by the Prussians who wanted to execute him on the spot. Larrey was recognized by one of the German surgeons, who pleaded for his life. Perhaps partly because he had saved the life of Blücher's son when he was wounded near Dresden and taken prisoner by the French, he was pardoned, invited to Blücher's dinner table as a guest and sent back to France with money and proper clothes.

Later career
After the empire, Larrey was given multiple opportunities abroad, including those from the United States, Russia, and Brazil. However, he chose to remain in France. He devoted the remainder of his life to writing, but after the death of Napoleon he started a new medical career in the army as chief-surgeon. In 1826 he visited England, received well by British surgeons. In 1829 he was appointed in the Institut de France. A year later, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 1842 he went to Algiers for a health inspection, together with his son, but contracted pneumonia on his way back, dying in Lyon on 25 July. His body was taken to Paris and buried at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery. His remains were transferred to Les Invalides and re-interred near Napoleon's tomb in December 1992.

Larrey's writings are still regarded as valuable sources of surgical and medical knowledge and have been translated into all modern languages. Between 1800 and 1840 at least 28 books or articles were published. His son Hippolyte (born 1808) was surgeon-in-ordinary to the emperor Napoleon III.

Works

 * Relation historique et chirurgicale de l’expédition de l’armée d’orient, en Egypte et en Syrie. Demonville, Paris 1803.
 * Mémoires de chirurgie militaire, et campagnes. J. Smith, Paris 1812. (digitalized books: Volume1, Volume 2, Volume 3)
 * Richard H. Willmott: Memoirs of military surgery. Cushing, Baltimore 1814. (volumes 1–3, digitalized book)
 * John C. Mercer: Surgical memoirs of the campaigns of Russia, Germany, and France. Carey & Lea, Philadelphia 1832. (volume 4, digitalized Book)

NATO award
The Dominique-Jean Larrey Award is the North Atlantic Alliance's highest medical honour. It is bestowed annually by NATO's senior medical body, the Committee of Chiefs of Military Medical Services in NATO (COMEDS), which is composed of the Surgeons General of NATO and partner nations. It is awarded in recognition of a significant and lasting contribution to NATO multi-nationality and/or interoperability, or to improvements in the provision of health care in NATO missions in the areas of medical support or healthcare development.

title: Dominique Jean Larrey


text:
José Alencar

José Alencar Gomes da Silva (17 October 1931 – 29 March 2011) was a Brazilian businessman, entrepreneur and politician who served as the 23rd vice president of Brazil from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2010. In business from a young age, Alencar became a self-made multimillionaire as the chief executive of Coteminas, a leading textile manufacturer. In the 1990s, Alencar groomed his son to succeed him at the company.

He opted to enter politics in his home state, Minas Gerais. Alencar had a business-oriented political platform, advocating market liberalization and deregulation of production. His expensive political campaigns received hefty funds from Coteminas. After a failed run in 1994 for governor of Minas Gerais, he won the election in 1998 as Senator representing his home state.

In 2002, Alencar was invited by the left-wing Workers' Party to run for vice president on the same ticket as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The alliance between the leftist union leader and Alencar, an experienced entrepreneur, proved successful. They won the 2002 Brazilian general election and were re-elected in 2006. Over the years, Lula da Silva and Alencar developed a close and affectionate friendship. Diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and kidney in 1997, Alencar died of the disease in 2011.

Alencar came to be revered among journalists and politicians for his spirited personality and friendly demeanor. He overcame his lack of formal education. Based on his business success, he argued in favor of lower taxes, especially indirect taxation over consumers, and a simpler tax system; lower interest rates and greater oversight of the banking industry; and social welfare and assistance programs. As Vice President, Alencar sometimes spoke out against his own government's orthodox policies, causing embarrassment for fellow administration members. His unwavering determination to live in the face of terminal cancer also marked public perception, during and after his time in office.

Biography
Alencar was born into a family of small entrepreneurs from Muriaé, in the inland state of Minas Gerais on 17 October 1931. He was the eleventh son of Antônio Gomes da Silva and Dolores Peres Gomes da Silva. As a child, he was a Boy Scout.

He started working while still a child, dropping out of primary school to help his father in the family business. He worked with his older brothers for years before becoming an independent successful businessman. For a time he worked as a travelling salesman and in food wholesale start-ups.

Alencar eventually turned his family's small clothes factory and retail store into a major business. In 1967, he founded Coteminas, which he would lead to become one of Brazil's largest textile manufacturers. He produced goods for traditional brands in its portfolio, such as Artex, Santista and Calfat. He vied for dominance of the global market after a merger with South Carolina-based Springs Industries.

Political career
After decades as a businessman, Alencar decided to enter politics and prepared his son to take over his leadership of Coteminas. He ran for governor of Minas Gerais in 1994. Although he was not successful, in 1998 he was elected as Senator from Minas Gerais. While in the Senate, Alencar worked on several Commissions, including the Senatorial Commission for Economic and Social Matters.

In 2002, he left the presidency of his company, by then a leading player with roughly 850 million reais in yearly net sales, to his son Josué Gomes da Silva. Alencar ran for Vice President of Brazil, tapped to be Lula's running mate, to assuage worries about the candidate's alleged anti-business bias. He became the honorary President of the center-right Liberal Party.

At the end of 2005, Alencar left his party to associate with the new Brazilian Republican Party, whose founders included Bishop Marcelo Crivella of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, a large and growing evangelical church in Brazil and other countries. Crivella is also a Senator representing Rio de Janeiro in the federal government.

Vice Presidency (2003-2010)
In office, Alencar aligned with another successful businessman in the cabinet, Luiz Fernando Furlan, to channel the demands of Brazilian businessmen. They voiced discontent with bureaucracy, insufficient infrastructure and cautious monetary policy. His efforts led to the strengthening of Apex-Brasil, a pro-export agency seen as instrumental in the Brazilian economy's recent rise in exports. Alencar was the most notable person in government to openly complain of the conservative monetary policies of the Brazilian Central Bank, under Henrique Meirelles, backed by ministers Antonio Palocci and Paulo Bernardo. He often criticized his own administration for failing to lower the Central Bank's base interest rates and demanded a reform of the country's tax system.

In November 2004 he was sworn in as Defense Minister, following the resignation of José Viegas Filho. Lula turned to him to occupy the position. Alencar tried to resign on several occasions, claiming that a businessman would hardly be the best choice for running a nation's military forces. President Lula convinced him to stay until March 2006, when Alencar resigned his ministerial post, in favor of anti-graft activist Waldir Pires.

Despite his disagreements with some policies of the Lula administration, Alencar was officially invited by Lula to be his running mate in the 2006 general elections. With Lula's re-election victory on 29 October, Alencar secured his position as vice president for another term. Alencar adopted a lower tone, while still espousing his traditional positions. He sought to run for the Senate in 2010, but was forced to give up due to the advanced stage of his cancer disease.

Personal life
After getting established, Alencar married Mariza Gomes in 1957. They had three children together. Their two daughters are Maria da Graça and Patrícia. Their son Josué took over the presidency of Coteminas after his father went into politics.

As a result of a case filed by Rosemary de Morais, a 55-year-old retired teacher, in July 2010 the court ruled that Alencar needed to recognize her as his daughter. (The case may be appealed.) He had refused to undergo DNA testing but, according to Brazilian law 12.004/2009, this refusal is accepted as evidence of paternity. In addition, the judge ruled that other evidence in the case led him to his decision. Rosemary de Morais said she was the child of Francisca de Morais, a nurse, and Alencar, from a relationship they had in 1954, before either was married. In 2015, the Superior Court of Justice recognized Rosemary as Alencar's daughter.

Disease and death
On a routine check-up, José Alencar was diagnosed with stomach and kidney cancer in 1997. After undergoing treatment for some length of time, he had his right kidney and two-thirds of his stomach surgically removed. Five years later, a malignant tumor in his prostate was removed. As the disease had metastasized, it continued to spread, and in 2006 doctors discovered a sarcoma in his abdomen. On 26 January 2009, a surgery extirpated eight tumors, along with compromised portions of his small and large intestines and the ureters. He was treated for digestive hemorrhage in December 2010 with urgent surgery, his last as vice president. Doctors could not remove the tumors in his abdomen because of the number of operations to which he had already been subjected – eighteen in all. Alencar received chemotherapy for many years. He was mostly treated at Hospital Sírio-Libanês, in São Paulo. He also received experimental treatment at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Alencar died in late March 2011, in the city of São Paulo, after 13 years battling metastasized cancer. His death was met with expressions of grief and respect by members of different institutions and across the political spectrum – former President Lula said he knew "few men with José Alencar's goodness and spirit" and President Rousseff said it was an "honor" to have served alongside him. Brazil held a state funeral for José Alencar, and Vice President Michel Temer decreed seven days of official mourning. Alencar is remembered as an honest and independent politician who favored social welfare and economic freedom.

title: José Alencar


text: Category:Florida street railroads

title: Category:Florida street railroads


text:
Washington C. Whitthorne

Washington Curran Whitthorne (April 19, 1825 – September 21, 1891) was a Tennessee attorney, Democratic politician, and an Adjutant General in the Confederate Army.

Early life and career
Whitthorne was born near Petersburg, Tennessee in Marshall County. One day when Whitthorne was young James K. Polk stayed at his family's home. Polk saw how bright he was and asked, "What are you going to make of this boy?" His father replied "I am going to make him the President of the United States." Polk then told them to send the boy to Columbia and he would make him a lawyer. He attended Campbell Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee and subsequently East Tennessee College (now the University of Tennessee) where he graduated in 1843. He subsequently studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1845, serving in various governmental positions, and working for James K. Polk until he entered private practice in 1848 in Columbia, Tennessee. He owned slaves. On July 4, 1848 Whitthorne married Matilda Jane Campbell, a cousin of Polk.

He was elected to serve in the Tennessee State Senate from 1855 to 1858. Whitthorne was then elected Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1859 to 1861.

Civil War service
In 1861 he became Adjutant General of Tennessee for the Confederacy, and served in that post through the end of the Civil War. He also served on the staff of generals Robert Anderson, Marcus Joseph Wright, Samuel P. Carter, and William J. Hardee.

Postbellum career
After Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, Whitthorne was held as prisoner of war at Columbia in order to be shielded from Federal prosecution. President Andrew Johnson interceded, gave him a Presidential pardon, and restored his civil rights. In 1870, Whitthorne began a campaign for the United States House of Representatives. He won the election and would eventually serve six consecutive terms during his initial service in the House of Representatives, chairing the House Committee on Naval Affairs from 1875 to 1881.

Upon the resignation of Senator Howell E. Jackson, Whitthorne was appointed to the U.S. Senate by governor of Tennessee William B. Bate and then subsequently elected to the balance of the term by the Tennessee General Assembly, serving in the Senate from April 16, 1886 to March 3, 1887. Following his Senate service he served two more subsequent consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives, from 1887 to 1891. After serving in the House of Representatives Whitthorne returned to Columbia and died there later in 1891, being interred at Rose Hill Cemetery. Whitthorne Middle School in Columbia, formerly Whitthorne Junior High School, is named in his honor.

title: Washington C. Whitthorne


text: User talk:68.46.7.188

title: User talk:68.46.7.188


text:
Text normalization

Text normalization is the process of transforming text into a single canonical form that it might not have had before. Normalizing text before storing or processing it allows for separation of concerns, since input is guaranteed to be consistent before operations are performed on it. Text normalization requires being aware of what type of text is to be normalized and how it is to be processed afterwards; there is no all-purpose normalization procedure.

Applications
Text normalization is frequently used when converting text to speech. Numbers, dates, acronyms, and abbreviations are non-standard "words" that need to be pronounced differently depending on context. For example:

 * "$200" would be pronounced as "two hundred dollars" in English, but as "lua selau tālā" in Samoan.
 * "vi" could be pronounced as "vie," "vee," or "the sixth" depending on the surrounding words.

Text can also be normalized for storing and searching in a database. For instance, if a search for "resume" is to match the word "résumé," then the text would be normalized by removing diacritical marks; and if "john" is to match "John", the text would be converted to a single case. To prepare text for searching, it might also be stemmed (e.g. converting "flew" and "flying" both into "fly"), canonicalized (e.g. consistently using American or British English spelling), or have stop words removed.

Techniques
For simple, context-independent normalization, such as removing non-alphanumeric characters or diacritical marks, regular expressions would suffice. For example, the sed script  would normalize runs of whitespace characters into a single space. More complex normalization requires correspondingly complicated algorithms, including domain knowledge of the language and vocabulary being normalized. Among other approaches, text normalization has been modeled as a problem of tokenizing and tagging streams of text and as a special case of machine translation.

Textual scholarship
In the field of textual scholarship and the editing of historic texts, the term "normalization" implies a degree of modernization and standardization – for example in the extension of scribal abbreviations and the transliteration of the archaic glyphs typically found in manuscript and early printed sources. A normalized edition is therefore distinguished from a diplomatic edition (or semi-diplomatic edition), in which some attempt is made to preserve these features. The aim is to strike an appropriate balance between, on the one hand, rigorous fidelity to the source text (including, for example, the preservation of enigmatic and ambiguous elements); and, on the other, producing a new text that will be comprehensible and accessible to the modern reader. The extent of normalization is therefore at the discretion of the editor, and will vary. Some editors, for example, choose to modernize archaic spellings and punctuation, but others do not.

title: Text normalization


text:
Talk:Kingdom of Heaven

Hello? Is anyone going to actually explain what this is? Something like "The Kingdom of Heaven is..." and an explanation of what exactly we're talking about. It seems to be a random collection of Bible quotes. I'll wait a while to see whether anyone wants to discuss it, then list it for cleanup. Dr Zen 06:16, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven" or "Kingdom of God" actually used in Jewish eschatology as a term for the Messianic age, or is this merely a projection of Christian terminology onto a similar Jewish concept? Shimmin 04:07, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

M'lakoth HaShmyim
Never heard this phrase in my life - please sir it not rabbinical or biblical Mike33 23:28, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You have actually written Many Kings of the Heavens. In Judaism no need to worry about whether king or not. He is always - L-rd of Heaven and Earth.

Please cut the hebrew words unless you can prove that you have heard them before. Regards Mike33 23:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I cut the hebrew because it was never substantiated... Glenn4pr 04:51, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ambiguous sentences
In the section "The Kingdom in Islam", I see the sentences:

Islam holds a great estimation as the location of many events associated with the life of Jesus. From that day, Jerusalem has had a very important spiritual meaning for Muslims, not only being the first Qibla but also the mystical experience of the Islamic prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven (Isra).

I can't make out a clear meaning here. "estimation" seems to be being used in a form that could be replaced more readably with "esteem", but I thought Islam was a religion, not a location in the sense used here. "From that day" is also ambiguous: from what day? These should be clarified.

Also, regarding this sentence:

Muslims believe that by name Jerusalem suggests "a place of peace" […]

I replaced "by" with "the", which seems to me to keep the semantics the same while aiding readability: a place suggesting something by name I interpret to be the same as the name suggesting it. If this is wrong, revert it and tell me why.

--Drake Wilson 00:01, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom

 * Luke 17:21 the kingdom of God is within [or among] you.

Kingdom is entered through understanding, acceptance with humility, spiritual rebirth, and doing the will of God

 * Mark 12:34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
 * Mark 10:15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
 * John 3:5 no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit
 * Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Kingdom is peopled by the righteous

 * 1 Corinthians 6:9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Kingdom contrasts the kingdom of Satan
Note that this is not hell since hell is not the domain of Satan, but the dungeon for him.
 * Luke 11:18 If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?
 * 2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgement

--Heptazane

Presenting Multiple Viewpoints
This article treads on belief issues, so it seems we need to try to present both viewpoints in a balanced way. My edit attempts that, however, I believe the intro still needs work to maintain NPOV. Glenn4pr

OK, I think I've improved the NPOV from my earlier edit. Now the only question is the order of the major sections. I'm not going to fret over that. I could be persuaded that the evangelical viewpoint has roots in restorationist and millenialist thought -- any experts aware of the historical roots of these concepts in fundamntal and evangelical movements? Glenn4pr

title: Talk:Kingdom of Heaven