This week in History

December 22
1691 – Patrick Sarsfield and The Wild Geese sail out of Cork harbour for France
1919 – “The Better Government of Ireland Bill” proposes two home rule parliaments, for the six north-eastern counties and the remaining 26, to come into effect in May 1920
1943 – The government announces that from now on bus-queuing is compulsory throughout Ireland if more than five people are waiting at a bus-stop
1974 – The London home of the Conservative leader and former Prime Minister Edward Heath is damaged from the impact of a bomb planted by the IRA. The attack comes just hours before a Christmas truce is due to come into effect
1997 – Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam battles to save the Stormont talks from total collapse as four Ulster Unionist MPs withdraw their support for their party’s continuing participation in the negotiations
2002 – The Minister for the Marine, Dermot Ahern, warns about the possibility of a “war on the seas” as a result of the failure by the European Union to agree on a policy on the Irish Box fishing area.

December 23
1688 – James II is deposed and flees to France
1770 – The Steelboys or Hearts of Steel, a Protestant agrarian protest movement, is involved in conflict in Ulster – 500 Steelboys release a prisoner in Belfast on 23 December
1864 – Death of James Bronterre O’Brien, Longford-born leader of the British Chartist movement
1920 – The Government of Ireland Act enforces the secession of the six Northern Irish counties from the rest of Ireland

December 24
1601 – The Battle of Kinsale. Hugh O’Neill and Red Hugh O’Donnell are heavily defeated by Mountjoy
1810 – John O’Connell, politician, is born in Dublin
1889 – Captain William O’Shea files for divorce, citing Parnell as his wife Kitty’s lover, thus causing moral outrage and the next loss of Parnell’s political power

December 25
1185 – Around Christmas, a crown that Henry had sought from the papacy for John’s use as king of Ireland is delivered, but will never be used
1351 – William Ó Ceallaigh, chief of Uí Mhaine, holds a great Christmas feast for the bards of Ireland
1824 – William Lawless, United Irishmen and officer in Napoleon’s Irish Legion, dies in Paris
1829 – Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, bandmaster and composer, is born in Co. Dublin
1844 – Rev. William Steel Dickson, Presbyterian minister and United Irishmen supporter, is born in Co. Antrim
1860 – Patrick Dinneen (Pádraig Ó Duinnín) priest, lexicographer and editor, is born in Rathmore, Co. Kerry

December 26
1998 – Former IRA Chief of Staff, Cathal Goulding, dies in a Dublin hospital
1999 – Hundreds of people walk through the Glen of the Downs in a show of solidarity with eco warriors, despite a Government order closing off the nature reserve to the public
December 27
1601 – Red Hugh O’Donnell leaves Ireland for Spain; Hugh O’Neill withdraws to Ulster
1791 – 68 conservative members secede from the Catholic Committee, which thereby becomes more militant
1849 – James Fintan Lalor, Young Irelander, dies
1904 – The Abbey Theatre opens with productions of Yeat’s “On Baile’s Strand” and “Cathleen ni Houlihan”, as well as Lady Gregory’s “Spreading the News”
1904 – George Bernard Shaw’s John Bull’s Other Island is performed in London
1960 – Death of Elizabeth Crotty, Irish traditional musician and activist for Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann
1969 – Dan Breen, IRA leader during War of Independence dies
1997 – A leading protestant paramilitary, Billy Wright, is shot dead at the maximum security Maze prison in Northern Ireland
2002 – A young man is “executed” in north Belfast as the simmering feud among loyalist paramilitaries erupts

December 28
1795 – Lord Gosford, Governor of Armagh declares the Orange Order a “lawless banditti”
1880 – The trial of Parnell and others for conspiracy begins on this date
1997 – The British government orders the deployment of the SAS in Mid-Ulster in a bid to thwart another Loyalist Volunteer Force outrage as IRA commanders in Tyrone meet in emergency session in an effort to keep the lid on the Provo ceasefire

December 29
1864 – The National Association of Ireland is founded in Dublin, backed by the Catholic hierarchy and intended to foster cooperation with English radicals to promote disestablishment of the Church of Ireland
1876 – The Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language is formed in Dublin
1997 – Secretary of State Mo Mowlam holds day-long crisis talks with security chiefs and prison officials amid renewed calls for her resignation and fears that breakaway loyalist and republican terror bosses will ruthlessly exploit any political vacuum

December 30
1997 – Key files from the Department of Defence, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General relating to the Arms Crisis of 1970 are discovered to be missing from the State archives
1997 – Thousands of loyalists pack the streets of Portadown for the funeral of LVF commander Billy Wright
December 31
1930 – The appointment of Letitia Dunbar-Harrison as Mayo County Librarian leads to controversy, for reasons related to her lack of Irish-language skill, her disregard of local patronage, and the fact that she’s a Protestant; Mayo County Council is dissolved by ministerial order on this date
1975 – The Anti-Discrimination (Pay) Act establishes the right to equal pay for equal or like work and provides a system whereby this right may be attained and enforced.

 

This week in History

December 15
1760 – John MacNaghten, a gambler, duellist and criminal, is hanged at Strabane jail for his involvement in the killing of Mary Anne Knox, daughter of Andrew Knox MP. At the first attempt to hang him, the rope breaks but, ignoring offers from the crowd to help him make his escape, he declares that he does not wish to be known for ever as ‘half-hung McNaghten’ and asks the hangman to proceed
1899 – Irish units of the Boer army face the Dublin Fusiliers, Connaught Rangers and the Inniskillings in the battle of Colenso
1971 – Death of General Richard Mulcahy, Irish Volunteer and TD
1993 – Albert Reynolds and John Major sign the Downing Street Declaration: if the IRA stops its campaign for three months, Sinn Féin will be allowed to join all-party talks.

 

December 16
1653 – Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector of Ireland
1922 – Arthur Griffith and his ministers assume seat of government at Dublin Castle
1939 – Barney McKenna of the Dubliners is born
1987 – Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and Kirsty McColl reaches no. 2 in the British charts
1999 – Padraic Wilson, a senior republican tipped to represent the IRA in disarmament talks, is given an early release from Northern Ireland’s top security Maze Prison

December 17
1803 – Rebel leader Michael Dwyer, whose guerrilla attacks had maddened British colonial authorities since 1798, surrenders
1885 – The results of newspaper reports of Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule, following the general election, gives Parnellites the balance of power
1971 – Soldier and politician General Richard Mulcahy dies in Dublin
1983 – An IRA car bomb kills 3 police officers and 3 shoppers outside Harrods in London’s Knightsbridge; scores are injured
1997 – New regulations are unveiled which confer sweeping discretionary powers on Departmental officials responsible for processing asylum applications, including the authority to summarily deport foreigners
1997 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a fleeting visit to Belfast in a bid to boost the faltering peace process
1998 – Danny McNamee’s12-year campaign to clear his name of a terrorist conviction ends in triumph
1999 – The State announces the purchase of the 550 acre Battle of the Boyne site for about £9 million. The seller is an unidentified businessman.

 

December 18
1781 – Barry Yelverton introduces the bill that will become Yelverton’s Act; the bill is an amendment of Poyning’s Act and states that only bills passed by both Irish houses of Parliament would be forwarded to England for assent (see entry for July 27, 1782)
1980 – Prisoners in Armagh and Long Kesh end their hunger strike on promises of political status. The promises are not kept
1998 – The Loyalist Volunteer Force becomes the first terrorist group in Northern Ireland to decommission some of its weapons
2000 – A boating accident in Mexico claims the life of singer Kirsty MacColl. She was best known for her vocals alongside The Pogues’ Shane McGowan on the 1987 Christmas No 1, Fairytale of New York
2001 – The Conservative Party ends more than three decades of co-operation over Northern Ireland in protest at the British government’s plans to allow Sinn Féin MPs to use offices at Westminster
2002 – According to the latest census figures, the prospect of a Catholic majority in Northern Ireland is fast becoming a reality
2002 – The Irish and British governments issue firm assurances about the temporary nature of arrangements in operation during the current suspension of the elected Northern Ireland Assembly

December 19
1877 – Land League organizer, Michael Davitt, is released from Dartmoor Prison
1972 – Thin Lizzy reach no. 1 in the Irish charts with Whiskey In The Jar
1973 – The Supreme Court in Dublin decides by a majority of four to one that a ban on contraceptives is unconstitutional
1974 – Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh is inaugurated as the fifth president of the Irish Republic following the death of Erskine Childers
1999 – Sinn Féin says it has no knowledge that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are to be given Westminster offices without having to swear an oath of allegiance
2002 – Unionist leader David Trimble walks out of talks aimed at restoring the North’s government and parliament after documents leaked in Dublin say the IRA is still active
2002 – In Limerick, hundreds take part part in a candlelit peace march to express their sympathy and support for families who have lost loved ones through violence

December 20
1865 – Birth in Dublin of Maud Gonne McBride, revolutionary and patriot, who dedicates her life to the attainment of an independent Irish nation
1961 – Robert McGladdery is hanged in Belfast for murder: his is the last judicial execution in Ireland
1998 – There is renewed speculation that the IRA will make a token gesture on the issue of decommissioning before 1998 passes into history
2000 – The bomb making capacity of dissident terrorists is severely dented with the seizure of almost 400 sticks of Frangex commercial plastic explosive in Co. Kilkenny

December 21
1796 – A French fleet under General Hoche with Wolfe Tone, 43 vessels and 14,500 men sails from Brest in December and is scattered by storms; 36 ships arrive at Bantry Bay but do not attempt a landing and return to France, thus preventing what might have been an Irish/French victory over the English
1919 – Dáil Éireann meets for the first time and elects Eamon de Valera as President of Ireland
1948 – Republic of Ireland Act passed by Dáil
1985 – Progressive Democrats founded by Dan O’Malley, Mary Harney, and other former members of Fianna Fáil, following split within party

In the Celtic Calendar, today is the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year. In Dublin, on this date, the sun will rise at 8:39 am and set at 4:09pm, giving just seven hours and 30 minutes of daylight. In Belfast, the day is even shorter. The sun will rise at 8:43 and set at 3:59.

 

This week in History

December 8
1896 – Death of Isabella Maria Susan Tod, Irish women’s rights activist
1922 – Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joseph McKelvey and Richard Barrett, Irish patriots – one from each of the four provinces – are executed by the Free State forces

1980 – Haughey and Thatcher meet in Dublin and agree to consider ‘the totality of relationships within these islands’

2002 – Hundreds of anti-war demonstrators march on Shannon airport in protest at the continued use of the airport by the US Air Force in preparation for possible war in the Gulf

December 9

1973 – At Sunningdale, Berkshire, British Prime Minister Edward Heath, Irish premier Liam Cosgrave, and representatives of the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, sign an historic agreement to set up a Council of Ireland

2000 – Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern arrives for the third day of the European Summit in Nice. Leaders of the 15 EU states have convened in this heavily guarded city to tackle a tough agenda which centers on the future structure of the European Union and the integration of new member states

2005 – Nearly 150,000 people take to the streets as the Irish Ferries protest mushroomed into the largest public demonstration the country has seen for two decades.
2005 – President Mary McAleese and Queen Elizabeth II meet in Northern Ireland. According to President McAleese, this historic event could clear the way for an unprecedented State visit. No British monarch has made such a trip since George V visited Dublin in 1911, a decade before partition.

December 10
1479 – Garret More Fitzgerald of Kildare, the ‘Great Earl’, holds a parliament in Dublin from 10 December; it will run, with adjournments, into 1481
1920 – Martial law is imposed in Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary
1977 – Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams receive the Nobel Peace Prize
1998 – The Irish and British governments launch a fresh search for a breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process in the wake of the joint award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Ulster’s political leaders David Trimble and John Hume
1999 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern says that a lasting end to the Northern Ireland conflict is now well in sight
2000 – Following four days of marathon talks in Nice, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern defeats European Union efforts to directly influence Ireland’s taxation policy

 

December 11
1905 – Birth of Erskine Childers, Ireland’s fourth president (1973-1974)
1920 – Martial law is declared in Ireland. Black and Tans and Auxiliaries go on a rampage of burning, rape and looting in Cork
1931 – Statute of Westminster is passed by British Parliament giving Dominion parliaments, including the Free State, equal status of the Imperial Parliament at Westminster
1936 – In the wake of the abdication of Edward VIII, the Dáil passes legislation removing the King from the Irish Constitution and abolishing the position of Governor General
1956 – The Irish Republican Army (IRA) begins what it calls “The Campaign of Resistance to British Occupation”; it is also known as the ‘Border Campaign’. As a result of the campaign, Internment is introduced in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. The campaign ends on 26 February 1962 because of lack of support
1998 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet in Vienna; they fail to find new ways of breaking the deadlock in the row over implementing the Good Friday Agreement
2002 – The replica famine ship, the Jeanie Johnston, arrives in Dublin after final fittings in Cork.

December 12
1883 – Birth in Dublin of Peadar Kearney, songwriter, revolutionary and house-painter; he is famous for writing the words of the Irish national anthem
1920 – Birth of Christy Ring in Cloyne, Co. Cork. His 24-year career record earned him a reputation as the greatest hurler of all time
1920 – Black & Tans continue their attacks in Cork
1957 – The IRA begins a violent four-year campaign in Northern Ireland
1975 – A six-day siege on Balcombe Street in London ends peacefully after four IRA gunmen free their two hostages and give themselves up to police
1997 – The Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair invite the key players in the talks into a 12-week negotiating blitz beginning in the New Year
2000 – At a farewell reception in Dundalk, US President Bill Clinton makes an emotional plea to the people of Ireland: “redouble your efforts for peace”
2001 – Intelligence agent William Stobie is gunned down in Belfast by former associates

 

December 13
1779 – British goods are boycotted in Ireland; armed Volunteers parade in College Green, Dublin in November and demand ‘a free trade or else’ (i.e. the removal of restrictions on Irish trade with the colonies). This demand is granted on this date
1867 – An explosion at Clerkenwell gaol in London, intended to aid in the escape of two Fenians, causes several deaths and injuries
1955 – Grace Gifford Plunkett, Irish patriot, dies
1997 – Over a thousand people take to the streets of Dublin in a theatrical spectacle called “Féile Fáilte” to protest racism, particularly against refugees
2000 – Crowds roaring their approval greet Bill and Hillary Clinton on stage at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, confirming the first couple’s enduring popularity in Northern Ireland
2001 – Queen’s University honours Manchester United legend, George Best, with an honorary doctorate in recognition of his services to football

December 14

1822 – A ‘bottle riot’ takes place on this date. Missiles are thrown at the vice-regal box during a performance in a Dublin theatre as a result of Wellesley banning celebrations in memory of William III
1831 – A process server and 12 policemen are killed by tithe protesters at Carrickshock, Co. Kilkenny
1900 – Maud Gonne and Paul Kruger (former president of the Transvaal) are offered the freedom of Limerick by the city council
1918 – Sinn Féin, pledged to an Irish Republic, wins 73 of 105 Irish MP seats. Winners include Constance Markievicz who becomes the first woman elected to the Parliament of England
1921 – Dáil Éireann begins Anglo-Irish treaty debate
1955 – The Republic of Ireland becomes a member of the United Nations
1965 – An Anglo-Irish free trade agreement is signed; the UK and Ireland undertake to establish a free trade area by the mid-1970s
1985 – Jack Charlton quits as Ireland manager
2001 – Garda technical experts examine 180 rounds of ammunition found on the outskirts of Cork city which they believe may be connected to the Real IRA.

 

This week in History

December 1
1494 – Poynings Law enacted. This forbids the Irish parliament to convene without the King’s prior permission, and all intended legislation has to be approved by him
1848 – The paddle steamer The Londonderry, with immigrants fleeing the famine, takes shelter in Derry harbour. When the covers are removed from the hold it is discovered that 72 men, women and children have suffocated
1890 – Six days of Irish Parliamentary Party debates begin, only to end in a split, with the majority opposing Parnell
1901 – Fenian Thomas Clarke Luby dies in New York. Luby was born in Dublin in 1821. He was the son of a Church of Ireland minister and graduate of Trinity College. His first political experience was in the Young Ireland movement
1998 – President Bill Clinton contacts First Minister, David Trimble, and his deputy, Seamus Mallon, in a bid to save the stalled Northern Ireland peace process
1999 – The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair hails the transfer of powers to Stormont as “one giant step forward”

December 2
1791 – Death in Kilkenny of Henry Flood, founder of the movement which forces Britain to grant legislative independence to Ireland
1811 – The Kildare Place Society is formed to maintain non-denominational schools and to promote the education of the poor
1865 – The Fenian senate deposes founder John O’Mahoney as president, replacing him with William Roberts
1998 – In an effort to break the deadlock in the stalled Northern Ireland political process, British Premier Tony Blair holds intensive discussions with David Trimble and Seamus Mallon at Stormont
1999 – The Good Friday Agreement comes into operation as the British and Irish governments formally notify each other that all the necessary arrangements are in place.The notification ceremony takes place at Iveagh House, St Stephen’s Green, headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs, at a joint signing by Foreign Affairs Minister, David Andrews, and the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Peter Mandelson
1999 – The IRA appoints an unnamed representative to enter into talks with General John de Chastelain on decommissioning

December 3
1792 – Beginning on this date and continuing through December 8, a Catholic Convention is held in Tailors’ Hall, Dublin to demand abolition of the remaining penal laws; a petition is presented to the king in London
1993 – Two bombs explode in the center of Manchester, injuring 65 people; the IRA claims responsibility the following day
1996 – Six officers are hurt as loyalists attack police with fireworks, bottles and stones in Portadown, Co Armagh
2002 – Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble, says there is little point in proceeding with multi-party talks in the North if the IRA refuses to address the need to give up all paramilitary activity.

December 4
1882 – John Curran, Dublin magistrate, opens a special inquiry into the Phoenix Park murders, in which Parnell is falsely implicated
1887 – Winifred Carney, trade unionist and revolutionary, is born in Bangor, Co. Down
1971 – The UVF claims responsibility for a bomb blast which kills 17 people in a Belfast pub
1983 – SAS soldiers involved in an undercover operation in Northern Ireland shoot and kill two IRA gunmen and injure a third man who escapes

December 5
1921 – After lengthy negotiations, the British give the Irish a deadline to accept or reject the Anglo-Irish treaty. In the words of Lloyd George, rejection would mean “immediate and terrible war”
1976 – A rally of twelve to fifteen thousand Peace People from both north and south takes place at the new bridge over the Boyne at Drogheda
1998 – The IRA Army Council and up to 60 Provisionals meet at a secret location near the border to debate arms decommissioning
2000 – The IRA reaffirms its commitment to putting arms beyond use in a statement issued in advance of President Bill Clinton’s visits to Dublin and Belfast
2001 – Police and custom officers on both sides of the Border smash a multi-million pound smuggling operation with links to dissident paramilitary groups

December 6
1679 – St. Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, is accused of instigating the “Irish Popish” Plot and arrested
1921 – Representatives of the Irish government appointed by President Eamon de Valera, and those negotiating for the Crown sign the Anglo-Irish Treaty, ending the Irish War of Independence against England. Michael Collins declares: “I have signed my own death warrant”
1922 – The Irish Free State, Saorstát Éireann, comes into being

December 7
1688 – Thirteen ‘Apprentice Boys’ refuse to let a Catholic army into Derry/Londonderry (7 December); Tyrconnell backs down and allows the city to keep its Protestant garrison. Enniskillen also defies James II
1879 – Birth in Tralee, Co. Kerry of Austin Stack, anti-Treaty nationalist
1922 – The six counties of Northern Ireland opt out of the Free State
1972 – “Special position” of the Catholic Church is removed by referendum from Irish constitution

1998 – The IRA makes an historic decision to start decommissioning following an IRA Army Convention meeting in Donegal

 

This week in History

November 22
1869 – Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Fenian, contests and wins a Tipperary by-election in abstentia, but is declared ineligible as a convicted felon
1919 – Birth of Máire Drumm, Irish Republican, in Newry, Co. Armagh
1963 – The first Roman Catholic president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, is assassinated in Dallas, Texas
1974 – Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Robert Hunter, Noel McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker, who become known as “The Birmingham Six” are charged in connection with pub bombings which took place earlier in the week. Nineteen people were killed.
They are found guilty in August 1975 of carrying out the bombings and sentenced to life imprisonment. But they are released after 16 years in jail when their convictions are quashed by the Court of Appeal in May 1991. The real bombers are never prosecuted and no group has ever admitted planting devices. Three detectives are charged with perjury and conspiracy in connection with the investigation, but their trial is halted in 1993 on the grounds of prejudicial media coverage. The six men finally agree undisclosed compensation settlements in June 2002 – more than 10 years after they are freed.
1998 – Security forces in Northern Ireland brace themselves as fears grow over a new bomb-blitz alert, the first since the Omagh massacre
1999 – The North’s politicians are given an ultimatum when the British Government warns it will pull the plug on the planned Stormont institutions if the IRA fails to decommission its arms
1999 – A timetable for the transfer of power to an inclusive Northern Ireland executive is outlined to the House of Commons
2000 – Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams meets with Bertie Ahern on the forth coming Irish Budget
November 23
11845 – Charlotte Grace O’Brien, social reformer who campaigned against conditions on emigrant ships, is born
1867 – Fenians Michael Larkin, William Philip Allen, and Michael O’Brien – the “Manchester Martyrs” – are executed
1913 – Irish Citizen Army is founded in Dublin by James Larkin
November 24
1865 – Two weeks after being arrested, James Stephens escapes from Richmond prison, Dublin
1922 – Irish republican Erskine Childers is executed by the Free State government
1940 – Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir James Craig, dies peacefully at his home on this date and is succeeded by the Minister of Finance John Andrews
1942 – Death of Peadar Kearney, writer of the Irish National Anthem, “A Soldier’s Song”
1972 – The RTÉ authority is replaced by the government after RTÉ broadcasts a radio interview with IRA leader Seán Mac Stiofáin
November 25
1713 – The second Irish parliament of Queen Anne sits from this date to 24 December. The Whig Alan Brodrick is elected Speaker for the second time, in place of John Forster, after a stormy contest with the government’s Tory nominee, Sir Richard Levinge
1784 – Napper Tandy asks for parliamentary reform for Ireland
1906 – Birth in Belfast of Saidie Paterson, trade unionist and peace activist
1913 – The Irish Volunteers, a militant nationalist splinter of the Irish Parliamentary Party and nationalist version of the 18th-century Ulster Volunteers, is founded by Eoin MacNeill at a mass meeting at the Rotunda, Dublin
November 26
1791 – First convicts from Ireland arrive in New South Wales, Australia
1955 – Saor Uladh (Free Ulster) a splinter group of the IRA, attacks the police barracks in Rosslea, Co. Fermanagh
1972 – RTÉ Journalist Kevin O’Kelly is imprisoned for contempt of court arising out of an interview with then Provisional IRA chief Séan MacStiofáin. Mr O’Kelly had refused to identify his interviewee in court
1972: Eight armed men protesting against the imprisonment of IRA leader Sean MacStiofain try to rescue him from a Dublin hospital. Police foil the attempt
1998 – Prime Minister Tony Blair makes a historic address to the Houses of the Oireacthas.
November 27
1906 – Death of Michael Cusack, one of the founders of the GAA.
1975 – Guinness Book of Records co-founder and editor Ross McWhirter dies of wounds inflicted by Irish gunmen; an outspoken critic of the IRA, the BBC Records Breaker presenter had recently offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of IRA bombers.
November 28
1863 – Foundation of the Fenian newspaper, “Irish People”; John O’Leary is the editor
1899 -Irish units in the Boer army fight in the battle of Modder River
1905 The Irish political party Sinn Féin is founded in Dublin by Arthur Griffith
1920 – An entire patrol of 18 auxiliaries at Kilmichael, west Cork, is wiped out by a flying column under the command of General Tom Barry in what would be one of the most effective and bloody IRA ambushes of the war.
November 29
1330 – Edward III, on attaining his majority, executes Mortimer on this date and banishes his own mother, Isabella. This revolutionizes the political situation in Ireland and England
1641 – The Ulster rebels defeat the government forces at Julianstown Bridge
1740 – Edward Sewell, a “couple-beggar” – i.e. a clergyman who conducts illegal marriages involving Catholics and Protestants – is hanged at Stephen’s Green
1783 – Ulster Volunteers’ parliamentary reform bill is rejected by the Irish Parliament at College Green
1895 – Death of Denny Lane, Young Irelander, author and poet
1993 – The Conservative government has come under attack in the Commons over the revelations it has had secret contacts with the IRA
1998 – IRA leaders are on the brink of making a goodwill gesture which could kick-start the stalled North peace process
1999 – Pressure grows on the Provisional IRA to hand over weapons in the wake of Northern Ireland’s first power sharing Government in 25 years

 

This Week In Irish History

October 8
1822 – Birth in Dublin of Richard D’Alton Williams. He is educated at Carlow Academy and studies medicine at Saint Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. He becomes a member of the Young Ireland movement and contributes poetry to The Nation under the pseudonym ‘Shamrock’. In 1848, he is tried for treason for articles he publishes in the Irish Tribune, but he is successfully defended by lawyer and fellow poet Samuel Ferguson
1974 – Seán MacBride, President of the International Peace Bureau, Geneva, Switzerland, and President of the Commission of Namibia, United Nations, New York, USA, is awarded a half share of the Nobel Peace Prize
Photo Credit: Nobel.se
1998 – Minister for Defence, Michael Smith TD strongly defends his decision to close down six army barracks after several delegates stage a walk-out at the PDFORRA conference in Ennis, Co Clare
1999 – On the grounds of Belfast City Hall, a six-foot statue is dedicated to the memory of the late James Magennis. He is finally honoured in his native Belfast 54 years after he was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during the Second World War
2000 – Catholic bishops begin a three-day meeting in Maynooth during which they will attempt to reach agreement on the ordination of lay people as deacons
2000 – More than 40,000 jubilant supporters turn out to welcome the victorious Co. Kerry football team and the Sam Maguire Cup back to the Kingdom
2001 – Six Counties political institutions are plunged into a new crisis as Ulster Unionists begin a phased withdrawal of ministers from the power-sharing executive
2002 – Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams claims that the raid on his party’s Stormont offices last week is a plot to throw the peace process into crisis. (Which of course it was. As time later showed the event was not much short of a coup. It could be likened to the NSDAP ordering storm-troopers raid opposition party offices. No one on the left in Britland or elsewhere seems to bat an eye lid. An Fíníneach called it for what it was at the the time)*
2002 – Catholic Bishops back the Nice Treaty, stating there is a stronger case for voting in favour than against.

October 9
1651 – The Navigation Act provides that goods imported to any Commonwealth lands shall be carried in English ships only
1849 – First tenant protection society established at Callan, Co. Kilkenny.
1968 – Champion racehorse, Arkle, is retired to see out the rest of his days in Bryanstown, Kildare
2000 – The Dinn Ri, Carlow Town, Co. Carlow, scoops the Black & White Pub of the Year Award for a third time
2001 – Nearly 450 jobs are lost as the economic fallout from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US continues to hit home. More than 1,600 workers at Waterford Crystal are also preparing for a complete shutdown next week for five days
2002 – SDLP Leader Mark Durkan urges the British and Irish Governments to do everything possible to minimise the damage to the Good Friday Agreement. Following talks in Downing Street with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Mr Durkan acknowledges that the power-sharing government in Stormont may have to be suspended after allegations of an IRA spy ring operating within the Northern Ireland Government [Again, everyone apart from Sinn Féin and An Fíníneach along with very few individuals fail to see what the allegations were — An attempt to criminalise Sinn Féin and negate it’s mandate.]*
2003 – The famous cranes at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard, which dominate the city’s skyline, are listed as historic monuments to ensure their preservation.

October 10
1084 – Patrick, Bishop of Dublin, dies in a shipwreck
1771 – During his visit to Ireland, Benjamin Franklin attends a meeting of the House of Commons on this date
1790 – Birth in Co. Tipperary of Fr. Theobald Matthew, “The Apostle of Temperance” and campaigner against alcohol
1865 – Magee College is opened as a combined arts and Presbyterian theological college in Derry/Londonderry
1899 – Irish Transvaal Committee is formed to aid Boers against the English
1969 – The Hunt Committee Report on Ulster police recommends abolition of the B-special troops and the creation of the Ulster Defence Regiment [In other words, and as history showed, this meant the renaming of the b-specials with the the new moniker in an attempt to suggest the organisation was more than just a Government sponsored Loyalist paramilitary group. The attempt succeeded and the UDR was/is generally accepted as a legitimate army. Catholics were especially encorouged to join to aid in the charade. Sadly around 900 did.]*
1971 – Birth in Cork of Roy Keane, football player for the Cobh Ramblers, Nottingham Forest, Manchester United, Celtic and the Republic of Ireland
1981 – The Fureys reach no. 14 in the British charts with When You Were Sweet Sixteen
1998 – THE IRA and Sinn Féin embark on a series of secret talks with Protestant churchmen and community leaders in a bid to prevent the peace process and the new Northern Ireland Assembly foundering
2000 – Taooiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister, Tony Blair signal the start of a concerted attempt to rescue the faltering Northern Ireland peace process
2001 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern joins the ranks of the publicly contrite world leaders when he finally apologises to three journalists for the tapping of their telephones in the early ’80s
2002 – After 22 years at the National Museum in Dublin, an eighth-century silver chalice, silver paten and stand and a decorated bronze strainer ladle are returned to their original resting place at the monastic site of Derrynaflan, near Littleton Bog, Co Tipperary.

October 11
1649 – Massacre at Wexford when the town falls to Cromwell
1703 – John Asgill, newly elected MP for Enniscorthy, is expelled from the Irish parliament on this date on account of a pamphlet he published in Dublin in 1698, arguing that man may pass into eternal life without dying. The pamphlet is burned by the common hangman. He will spend much of the rest of his life in prison in England, for blasphemy or for matters arising from land speculation in Ireland
1921 – Anglo-Irish negotiations open with Griffith and Collins leading the Irish delegation
1922 – The Irish Constitution for the Free State, drafted by the Thomas Cosgrove Dáil, is adopted
1974 – Adoption of the Celtic League American Branch
1999 – Hospitals begin scaling down their services after nurses vote overwhelmingly to go on strike
1999 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pays tribute to Mo Mowlam’s courage and understanding after it emerges that she is leaving her Northern Ireland post
2000 – In an historic move, Ireland’s Bishops vote at the autumn meeting of the Irish Bishop’s Conference in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth to seek the permission of Pope John Paul II to establish a Permanent Diaconate in Ireland. What this means is that Irish men will be ordained as deacons in the Catholic Church within the next five years and will have powers to officiate at weddings, baptisms and funerals
2002 – Geraldine Kennedy is appointed editor of The Irish Times and becomes the first female editor of a national daily newspaper

October 12
1645 – Archbishop Rinuccini arrives in Ireland
1798 – French fleet intercepted off Donegal. Wolfe Tone captured when the Hoche strikes its colors
1970 – Founding in Dublin of what is considered by some to be the first Celtic rock band, Horslips
1975 – Sir Oliver Plunkett is canonised
1999 – Former US Senator George Mitchell moves his make or break review of the Good Friday Agreement to London, just hours after new Secretary of State Peter Mandelson arrives in Northern Ireland to meet the North’s political leaders
2000 – Roman Catholic and Protestant Bishops are on a collision course following Archbishop Dr Desmond O’ Connell’s backing of the controversial document “Dominus Iesus” which proclaims the Catholic Church to be the one true church
2002 – Paddy’s Bar, owned by Cork woman Natalia Daly, is destroyed in a series of explosions which kill more than 200 people in Bali. Most of those killed or injured are Australian tourists; the dead and injured also include Swiss, Germans, Swedes, Americans, Britons and Italians. Three Irish people are still unaccounted for.

October 13
1494 – Poynings lands at Howth and summons a parliament to Drogheda. He then campaigns in the north
1729 – William Conolly resigns as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons on grounds of ill health. Sir Ralph Gore is elected unanimously in his place
1881 – Charles Stewart Parnell and others are arrested for Land League activities
1923 – Republican prisoners in Mountjoy prison begin mass hunger strike
2000 – Provisional IRA gunmen are blamed by some for the murder of an alleged leading member of the RIRA, Joseph “Jo Jo” O’Connor who is shot dead in West Belfast.  [The original source cited JO JO as a leading member of the CIRA. I have, I think, corrected the oversight. If I’m wrong then, it is up to anyone who thinks so to tell me and I’ll correct it or amend it]*
2002 – Three Irish tourists are among 25 people still unaccounted for following a massive bomb blast which ripped through two packed bars on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

October 14
1702 – Irish Brigade of France fights in the battle of Friedlingen
1767 – George Townshend, 4th Viscount Townshend, becomes Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
1783 – Edmond Sexton Pery is unanimously re-elected as Speaker of the Irish parliament
1791 – Wolfe Tone visits Belfast for the first time; the Society of United Irishmen is founded there on this date by Tone, Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson
1814 – Birth of author and patriot, Thomas Osborne Davis in Mallow, Co. Cork
1880 – Nationalist and Gaelic League activist, Mary Ellen Spring-Rice is born
1882 – Eamon de Valera, nationalist campaigner, Fianna Fáil leader, Taoiseach and president of Ireland, is born in Brooklyn, New York of a Spanish father and an Irish mother
1920 – Tipperary IRA man, Sean Treacy, is killed in a gun battle in Talbot Street, Dublin
1932 – Between October 4 and this date, strikes, marches and protests are held in Belfast against low unemployment payments, temporarily uniting Catholic and Protestant unemployed; payments are raised
1999 – More than 1,000 mourners gather in Belfast for the funeral of Patrick Campbell, a hard line republican paramilitary who was murdered in a drugs dispute [Patrick Campbell was a member of INLA and was apparently killed by drug dealers. There is no evedence as far as I know that Parick Campbell was involved with drugs apart from fighting them]*
2001 – The first multiple State funeral is held in honour of 10 IRA Volunteers, including Kevin Barry, who were executed for their role in the War of Independence. More than 80 years after they were buried in the grounds of Mountjoy Prison, the bodies of the 10 men were exhumed and reinterred in a special new plot at Glasnevin Cemetery. The ten men were Kevin Barry, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle, Frank Flood, Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Traynor, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher.
* Entries edited by An Fíníneach

 

This week in History

October 1
1751 – Cornelius Bolton, politician, Volunteer and improving landlord is born
1761 – In the climate of sectarian tension created partly by the Mathew-Maude controversy, the Whiteboys, a violent agrarian protest movement, begins in Tipperary and spreads through Munster and West Leinster
1911 – Statue of Charles Stewart Parnell is unveiled in Dublin
1979 – RTÉ broadcasts Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland
2001 – Journalists from all over Ireland gather to pay tribute to colleague Martin O’Hagan who was gunned down last week. More than 1,500 people attend his funeral in his hometown of Lurgan, County Armagh

October 2
1600 – O’Neill engages Mountjoy’s forces in the Battle of Moyry Pass
1833 – Birth of Father William Corby who became Chaplain of the Irish Brigade in Detroit, Michigan
1852 – William O’Brien, writer and nationalist, is born in Mallow, Co. Cork
1879 – Kate Coll arrives in New York from Ireland on board the SS Nevada. She later marries Juan Vivion de Valera, and gives birth to Éamon on October 14, 1882 in New York
1900 – Hubert Butler, writer and local historian, is born near Bennettsbridge, Co. Kilkenny
1942 – The British cruiser Curaçao sinks off Donegal after colliding with the Queen Mary; 338 lives are lost

October 3
1691– Treaty of Limerick is signed by Ginkel and Sarsfield, ending the Williamite War in Ireland; the treaty allows evacuation of the Irish army to France and promises tolerance of Irish Catholics
1750 – James McLaine, gentleman highwayman born in Monaghan, is hanged at Tyburn
1871 – Gen. John O’Neill and a small force of Fenians invade Canada at Pembina, Manitoba
1961 – Ireland applies for membership of the European Economic Community on 1 August and joins UNESCO on this date
1966 – Birth of Niall Quinn, footballer
1971 – Death of Seán Ó Riada, founder, composer, and arranger for the Chieftains. He composed Mná na hÉireann (Women of Ireland). Guided by his vision, traditional music changed radically, and became accessible to a modern Irish audience, and through this traditional music, the cultural life of Ireland was invigorated. (taken from the book “Bringing It All Back Home” by Nuala O Connor)
1975 – Dr Tiede Herrema, chief executive of the Dutch-owned Ferenka factory in Ballyvarra, County Limerick, is kidnapped by the IRA
1981 – In the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, ten IRA and INLA hunger-strikers die between 5 May and 12 August; the hunger strike is called off on this date
2002 – Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness condemns a weekend gun attack on a bus driver in his home city of Derry which police believe was the work of the IRA.
October 4
1582 – Pope Gregory reforms the calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45BCE: 4 October is followed by 15 October. However, the reform will not be implemented in Ireland till 1752
1693 – Irish Brigade of France fights in the battle of Marsaglia
1733 – Henry Boyle, the future Earl of Shannon, is unanimously elected Speaker of the Irish parliament. He will serve till 1756 – the longest-serving Speaker of the 1692-1800 parliaments
1842 – Birth of heavyweight bare-knuckle boxer Jim Dunne in Co. Kildare.
Dunne won the American heavyweight title from fellow Irishman Jim Elliot – the pair were jailed after the illegal event
1961 – General election is held in the Republic. Fianna Fáil gains 70 of the 144 seats
2001 – Cork will be Europe’s Culture Capital in 2005 after landing the prestigious title ahead of Galway
2002 – Thousands of people from all over the country march in protest over redundancy payments
2002 – The North’s police service launch dawn raids on Sinn Féin’s offices at the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont

October 5
1731 – Parliament meets at the new parliament house in College Green for the first time
1878 – New York Gaelic Society is formed
1923 – Birth of Philip Berrigan – militant priest, Virginia, Minn
1924 – John Joe Barry, athlete who is known as ‘the Ballincurry Hare’, is born
1968 – Police clash with Derry civil rights marchers, giving birth to the civil rights organization People’s Democracy
2000 – With pressure growing on Trimble to withdraw from the Northern Ireland power sharing executive, parliamentary colleague William Thompson, the West Tyrone MP is quoted as saying ‘‘He is on the skids and he cannot survive’
2000 – In one of the largest operations in the history of the State, over 150 gardaí and officers from the FBI search a warehouse and distribution center. At the centre of the investigation is a Shannon based company that is alleged to have sold counterfeit aircraft parts to aircraft maintenance and repair facilities
2000 – Ireland’s ban on tobacco advertising stands despite the decision by the European Court of Justice to knock down an EU wide ban
2001 – Former NI First Minister David Trimble announces plans to go to the House of Lords after failing to overturn a ruling that his ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending cross-Border meetings is illegal
2001 – Ten thousand rail travellers are delayed when Dublin’s Heuston railway station closed because of a bomb alert

October 6
1175 – Under the Treaty of Windsor, concluded on this date, Rory O’Connor recognizes Henry as his overlord and agrees to collect tribute for him from all parts of Ireland. Henry agrees that O’Connor can be king of the areas not conquered by the Normans. But O’Connor cannot control the territories of which he is nominally king, and Henry and his barons annex further land without consulting him
1216 – The union of the diocese of Glendalough with that of Dublin, having been promulgated by Pope Innocent III last year, is confirmed by Pope Honorius III
1798 – Grattan removed from Irish Privy Council, falsely charged with being a sworn member of United Irishmen
1891 – Death of Charles Stewart Parnell, champion of tenants rights and co-founder of the Land League; often called the “Uncrowned King of Ireland”
1928 – Death of Galway man Pádraic Ó Conaire, who was among the first writers to develop a new modern literature in the Irish language
1948 – Birth of Gerry Adams
1970 – Opening of the arms trial involving Charles Haughey
1980 – Mella Carroll, first female judge in the Republic, is appointed
2000 – The High Court grant gardaí the right to detain Slobodan Milosevic if he sets foot in Ireland

October 7
1878 – Birth of Margaret (Gretta) Cousins, Irish women’s rights activist.
1910.- Premiere of Percy French’s play The Immigrant’s Letter
1919 – A cabinet committee is appointed to consider Irish self government
1935 – Birth of Thomas Kineally, Irish-Australian author of Schindler’s List which was originally called Schindler’s Ark
1968 – Death of Margaret Mary Pearse, Irish language educator
1998 – The Bank of Ireland announces an unprecedented 20-year fixed rate of 6·99% within the first of a wave of interest cuts that will bring Irish rates into line with Europe for the introduction of the euro on January 1
1999 – Ireland moves a step closer to raising the recruitment age of the armed forces from 16 to 18
2000 – The tenants of a Dublin inner city community refuse to leave their houses after been evicted. The tenants of 28 cottages – – almost all single mothers – block access to their homes when they go up for viewing to prospective buyers
2002 – Police in Northern Ireland are attacked with bottles and other missiles after a crowd of youths go on the rampage through Kilkeel, Co. Down
2002 – The peace process faces its gravest crisis with the announcement that Ian Paisley’s DUP two ministers will withdraw from the government
2002 – A man is shot and critically wounded in east Belfast in what is believed to be an escalation of a bitter feud between the Loyalist paramilitary groups, the UDA and UVF.

 

This Week In History

September 22

1601 – Battle of Kinsale
1626 – Charles I offers twenty-six concessions (“graces”) to the Irish in return for subsidies to expand his army
1798 – Colonel Trench marches from Castlebar and takes Ballina
1864 – Col. James Mulligan, who commanded “Mulligan’s Irish Brigade,” dies of wounds sustained at the 3rd Battle of Winchester
1920 – Mid-Clare Brigade, IRA, kill six policemen near Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare
1998 – RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan announces further reductions in the level of British troop patrols
1998 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pushes for a decommissioning timetable from the IRA
2001 – High-ranking British and Spanish diplomats join President McAleese and Britain’s Prince Andrew to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Kinsale
2002 – David Trimble calls on all IRA members to quit the paramilitary organisation and join its political wing to save the Northern peace process.

September 23

1586 – At the battle of Ardnaree in Co. Mayo, Sir Richard Bingham, governor of Connacht, surprises a force of redshanks (Scottish mercenary light infantrymen) engaged by the Burkes of Mayo; 1,000 redshanks and 1,000 camp followers are killed. Bingham hangs the leaders of the Burkes
1641 – The Gaelic Catholics of Ulster stage an uprising against the Scottish Presbyterian planters
1798 – Second Battle of Killala. Final surrender of combined French and Irish forces to the English
1970 – Sir Arthur Young announces his resignation as chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
1992 – The IRA destroys Belfast’s forensic science laboratory with a huge bomb
2001 – Kevin Boland, who resigned from the Fianna Fáil Government during the 1970 Arms Crisis, dies after a short illness. He was the son of Gerald Boland, a 1916 veteran, confidant of Eamon de Valera, and long-time FF government minister; his uncle was the celebrated War of Independence hero, Harry Boland

2002 – The Listowel Races in Co. Kerry begin. For the first year in its history, which dates to 1858, it will be a seven-day meeting.

September 24

1661 – Faithful Tadpole is admitted as a clerical vicar choral of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
1725 – Sir Arthur Guinness is born in Celbridge, Co. Kildare
1786 – Birth of Charles Bianconi, Irish passenger-car entrepreneur
1798 – United Irishman, Bartholomew Teeling, is hanged in Dublin
1801 – James Moore O’Donell, former MP for Ratoath, is killed in a duel with Major Denis Bingham in a feud over Co. Mayo politics
1880 – Mayo agent, Captain Charles Boycott, was sent to a ‘moral Coventry.’ He described his plight in a letter to The Times: “…people collect in crowds upon my farm and order off all my workmen. The shopkeepers have been warned to stop all supplies to my house. My farm is public property, I can get no workmen to do anything, and my ruin is openly avowed as the object of the Land League unless I throw up everything and leave the country”
1944 – Birth in Dublin of Eavan Boland, a poet who helped develop Arlen House, a feminist publishing company
1959 – Ireland’s first Ban Garda recruit – woman police-officer – is introduced to RTÉ listeners
1998 – Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne admits that the Real IRA leaders who ordered the Omagh bombing will probably never be prosecuted
1998 – First Minister David Trimble and his deputy Séamus Mallon are divided over the set-up of the Assembly’s power-sharing Executive

September 25

1697 – During William III’s reign, Catholic clergy are banished by Act of Parliament
1880 – Viscount Mountmorres is killed near Clonbur, Co. Galway
1917 – Thomas Ashe dies in the Mater Hospital in Dublin from the combined effects of a hunger strike and forced feeding at Mountjoy Jail. The following famous and much repeated Sean O’Casey quote “You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea… you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.” was made on the subject of the death of Thomas Ashe
1961 – Ronnie Whelan, Home Farm, Liverpool, Reading and Republic of Ireland footballer, is born in Dublin
1983 – 38 IRA prisoners break out of the Maze prison, 19 succeed in escaping
1999 – Protestant civil rights marchers blatantly defy a Belfast City Council ban to lay a wreath at the cenotaph to the victims of the Troubles during the so-called Long March
2000 – Sonia O’Sullivan wins a silver medal in the 5,000 meters at the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia
2002 – Saying “He is no longer acceptable in our organisation,” Loyalist chief Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair is dumped by the leadership of the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association.

September 26

1289 – ‘All men of good will to the king’, both Irish and English, in Munster and Leinster are summoned to Buttevant in Leix (Queen’s County). A ten-day expedition which begins on this date, subdues and forces the local Irish into an uneasy peace
1713 – Charles Lucas, physician, MP and political radical, is born in Ballingaddy, Ennis, Co. Clare
1902 – James Dillon, politician and Fine Gael leader is born in Dublin
1930 – Saor Éire, a republican/socialist party, is founded by Peadar O’Donnell, Seán MacBride and other IRA members; it, the IRA and ten other organizations are declared illegal in the Free State on 23 October, and the Catholic Church excommunicates members of all 12 organizations. Saor Éire is soon dissolved
1932 – De Valera opens the 13th Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva
1957 – Shamrock Rovers become the first League of Ireland team to play in the European Cup — they lose 6-0 to Manchester United
2000 – Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble warns that the Good Friday Agreement could vanish over plans for new policing arrangements and the IRA’s failure to disarm
2000 – Financier George Finbar Ross, whose Gibraltar-based International Investments company went bust in the mid-eighties owning millions to Irish investors, is cleared of the bulk of the charges against him
2001 – Thousands of teachers will be docked up to £500 each because of industrial action they took prior to last year’s State exams

September 27

1662 – An “act for encouraging Protestant strangers and others to inhabit and plant in the kingdom of Ireland” is passed in the Irish Parliament under Charles II
1725 – Patrick Darcy, scientist and soldier, is born in Kitulla, Co.Galway
1891 – Charles Stewart Parnell makes his last public appearance at Creggs, Co. Galway
1971 – Heath, Lynch and Faulkner meet for talks at Chequers
1973 – The first in an annual series of ecumenical conferences is held at Ballymascanlon, Co. Lout and is attended by representatives of al the main churches
1998 – Tony Blair calls for a crisis meeting with David Trimble, Seamus Mallon and Gerry Adams to try to break the deadlock which has arisen over the decommissioning of arms
1998 – Liam Neeson and Natasha Richardson announce they will donate a six-figure libel payout to a memorial fund for the victims of the Omagh bomb massacre
2000 – Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams accuses David Trimble of attempting to manufacture another artificial crisis in Northern Ireland
2000 – Thirty-three years after it was made, censors lift the ban on a film adaptation of James Joyce’s epic novel Ulysses
2001 – British Airways announces it is to close its Belfast-Heathrow route with 160 job losses. BA’s decision also means it will suspend its daily service to Gatwick from Shannon and Cork

September 28

1678 – ‘Popish plot’ is alleged in England
1690 – Marlborough takes Cork for the Williamites
1703 – Francis Annesley is expelled from the Irish Commons for his part in The Report of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament into the Irish Forfeitures, printed in London, containing the paragraph: ‘And indeed it does appear to us, that the Freeholders of this Kingdom, through length of time and by contracting new friendship with the Irish, or by inter-purchasing with one another, but chiefly through a general dislike of the disposition of the forfeitures, are scarce willing to find any person guilty of the late rebellion, even upon full evidence.’ The House has found that Annesley ‘scandalously and maliciously misrepresented and traduced the Protestant Freeholders of this Kingdom and thereby endeavoured to create a misunderstanding and jealousy between the people of England and the Protestants of this Kingdom’
1912 – Edward Carson, leader of Ulster Unionists, stages signing of “Southern League and Covenant” against Irish Home Rule
1920 – Cork No. 2 Brigade, IRA, attacks and captures a military barracks in Mallow, Co. Cork. English forces later burn and sack the town
1964 – Divis Street riots follow Ian Paisley’s insistence that the RUC remove the Tricolour from a window at Sinn Féin’s Belfast headquarters
1998 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern vows to hand over all necessary papers to the Flood Tribunal investigation into alleged planning irregularities
1999 – The home of dual Olympian and arguably Ireland’s greatest ever athlete, the late Dr Pat O’Callaghan, is demolished in his adopted Clonmel to make way for a Rehab training facility
2000 – The Ulster Unionist Party warns that it may withdraw from all North South bodies established under the Good Friday Agreement unless guarantees are forthcoming on IRA decommissioning, and policing
2000 – A call for the IRA to be disbanded is made by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he reiterates the view that Fianna Fáil cannot go into government with Sinn Féin while that party remains linked to an armed force.

September 29

1155 – A proposal for the invasion of Ireland by Henry II is discussed at the Council of Winchester and rejected, though soon after, Henry obtains a papal privilege approving the invasion
1603 – Rory O’Donnell kisses the king’s hand and is created Earl of Tyrconnell
1678 – Count Peter Lacy, soldier, governor of Livonia (Latvia) and field-marshal in the Russian army, is born in Killeedy, Co. Limerick
1732 – Birth of Sir Henry Cavendish, politician and master of shorthand, who recorded parliamentary debates
1798 – Tandy and other Irish political prisoners in Hamburg are handed over to British authorities
1898 – Fenian Thomas Clarke is released from Portland Prison
1929 – The last active Fenian, John Devoy, dies
1930 – George Bernard Shaw refuses a peerage
1972 – Kathleen Daly Clarke, Irish patriot, dies
1979 – Pope John Paul II arrives in Dublin for the first ever papal visit to Ireland
2002 – In Co. Wicklow, five paintings, including two by the renowned artist, Rubens, are stolen in another raid on Russborough House which has a history of art thefts.

September 30
1430 – A great council meets at Dublin on on this date; it states that Irish enemies and English rebels have conquered almost all of Limerick, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow, Kildare, Meath and Louth, so that hardly anything but Co. Dublin remains in the colony
1598 – The English poet Edmund Spenser is appointed Sheriff of Cork
1691 – The first recorded meeting of the Presbyterian general synod of Ulster is held at Antrim
1900 – Arthur Griffith forms Cumann na nGaedheal, which later becomes Sinn Féin
1959 – World premiere of the Sean O’Riada’s film Mise Éire, at Cork Film Festival
1994 – Michael Flannery, Irish patriot, dies in New York City
1998 – Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam holds out the prospect of troops being removed permanently from the streets of the North if paramilitary groups hand in their weapons
1998 – Gerry Adams warns there must be no slippage in full implementation of the Good Friday settlement

1998 – The first appearance together of David Trimble and Séamus Mallon on a Labour platform draws an enormous and spontaneous ovation from the 3,000 delegates attending the party conference in Blackpool

1999 – The Rev. Ian Paisley meets with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the question of arson attacks on churches in the border area.

2001 – Thousands of Irish, New Yorkers and Irish-Americans pay tribute to the many Irish people who died in the terrorist attacks. Bishop John Buckley of Cork celebrated the mass with the Bishop of Killaloe at the Roman Catholic Holy Trinity church in Manhattan.

 

This week In Irish History

September 15
1865 – Police raid and close the Irish People offices; Rossa, Luby and O’Leary are arrested
1866 – John Blake Dillon, Young Irelander and co-founder of The Nation, dies in Killarney
1881 – First soccer international in Ireland; England beats the Irish squad Total crowd receipts: £9.19s.7d
1905 – Pat O’Callaghan, physician, hammer-thrower and first man to win an Olympic gold medal while representing Ireland, is born near Kanturk, Co. Cork
1976 – Anne Letitia Dickson is elected leader of the Unionist Party of Northern ireland, becoming the first woman to lead a political party in Ireland
1997 – Sinn Fein joins multiparty peace talks in Northern Ireland
1999 – The Corrs, the Cranberries and the Chieftains take the lion’s share of £15.6 million collected by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) on behalf of Irish song writers
2000 – Sonia O’Sullivan leads the Irish team at a spectacular Olympic opening ceremony in Sydney, Australia
2001 – Aer Lingus, Delta and Continental Airlines resume services to and from Ireland. The first trans-Atlantic flights to the US leave for New York, Newark, Chicago and Washington. Priority status is given to all relatives of the victims and injured in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

September 16
1732 – Birth in Castletown, Co. Clare of Thomas O’Gorman, physician, wine trader and courtier in France; made a chevalier by Louis XV
1798 – Small French force under James Napper Tandy makes brief landing on Rutland Island, Co. Donegal
1798 – Belfast United Irish leaders arrested
1845 – Death of Thomas Davis, revolutionary, poet, and political theorist
1865 – Fenian newspaper, Irish People, ceases publication
1870 – Birth in Dublin of John Pius Boland, nationalist politician and Ireland’s first Olympic gold medalist
1925 – Charles Haughey, Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach, is born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo
1934 – Singer, guitarist and founder of the Dubliners, Ronnie Drew, is born in Dublin
1941 – Sixteen soldiers are killed in the Glen of Imaal, Co. Wicklow, while testing mines
1998 – Books of condolences opened in the aftermath of the Omagh tragedy are closed. More than 150,000 people from across Northern Ireland are estimated to have signed the books.

September 17
1798 – 3000 French troops depart for Ireland from Brest
1903 – Frank O’Connor, (pseudonym of Michael O’Donovan), short-story writer and author of poetic translations from Irish is born in Cork
1920 – Birth of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel, born in Belfast and educated in Dublin
1930 – The Free State is elected to the council of the League of Nations
1937 – Ten young men, potato-pickers from Achill Island, die when a bothy catches fire on a farm at Kirkintilloch, Scotland
1976 – The founders of the Peace Movement, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, are awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
1999 – Interest rates for thousands of home owners tumble as the mortgage war escalates

September 18
1846 – James Standish O’Grady, novelist, is born in Castletownbere, Co. Cork
1867 – Kelly and Timothy Deasy are rescued in a Fenian attack on a police van in Manchester during which a police sergeant is shot dead
1889 – Kathleen Behan, née Kearney, ‘Mother of All the Behans’ and folk singer is born in Dublin
1851 – Anne Devlin, friend and comrade of Robert Emmett, dies in Dublin
1914 – Home Rule Act on Statute Book but is suspended for the duration of World War
1941 – Stephen Hayes, a former IRA chief of staff, is kidnapped on 30 June; he later claims to have been ‘court martialled’ and tortured by the IRA; Seán McCaughey is convicted of his kidnapping on this date
1964 – Death of Sean O’Casey in England.

September 19
1757 – Having been funded by a bequest from Jonathan Swift, St Patrick’s Hospital for the insane, Dublin, is opened
1880 – Parnell delivers his famous speech at Ennis in which he introduces the term for non-violent protest – boycotting. Parnell asked his audience, ‘What are you to do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which another has been evicted?’ Several voices replied, ‘shoot him!’ Parnell answered: “I wish to point out a better way, a more Christian way which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside, on the streets, in the shop and even in the place of worship by putting him in a “moral Coventry.” You must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed”
1881 – Kate Coll and Juan Vivion de Valera are married in St. Patrick’s Church, Greenville, New Jersey. Just over a year later the couple give birth to Éamon
1905 – Death of Dr. Thomas Barnardo. Dublin-born Barnardo opened his first home for destitute boys in Stepney in 187. It became clear that the boys were to be indoctrinated in the protestant faith. More recently it has attempted, publicly at least, to rid itself of it’s secterian image.

September 20
1689 – The Enniskillen Protestants defeat Jacobite forces at Boyle, Co. Roscommon
1784 – Sir Richard Griffith, geologist and civil engineer, is born in Dublin
1803 – Robert Emmet, Irish patriot, is executed in Dublin. Emmet becomes a hero of Irish nationalists, largely on the basis of his stirring speech from the dock: “Let no man write my epitaph…When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph be written”
1847– Birth in Carron, Co. Clare of Michael Cusack, GAA founder
1911 – Anna Catherine Parnell, Irish patriot, dies
1918 – Republican newspapers are banned by English
1920 – Black and Tans raid Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
1920 – Kevin Barry is captured
1968 – Traffic wardens appear in Dublin for the first time.

September 21
1170 – MacMurrough and the Normans march on the Norse kingdom of Dublin, avoiding an Irish force that awaits them to the south of it. Dublin falls to them on this date. Some Norsemen, including the king of Dublin, Askulv, flee to the Hebrides or the Isle of Man
1601 – A Spanish army under Don Juan del Aguila lands at Kinsale
1703 – The first Irish parliament of Queen Anne is called; Alan Brodrick is unanimously elected Speaker
1728 – Philip Embury, founder of the American Methodist Church, is born in Ballingrane, Co. Limerick
1745 – The Jacobites are victorious at Prestonpans
1795 – ‘Battle of the Diamond’ between (Protestant) Peep o’ Day Boys and (Catholic) Defenders near Loughgall, Co. Armagh leaves 30 Defenders dead and leads to the foundation of the Loyal Orange Institution (later the Orange Order) ‘…to defend the King and his heirs as long as they shall maintain the Protestant ascendancy’
1881– Revolutionary Éamonn Ceannt, is born in Glenamaddy, County Galway
1949 – The Republic of Ireland soccer team beats England 2-0 at Goodison Park – England’s first defeat by a foreign side
1999 – Delegations from the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin meet at Stormont for their first direct talks in two months
1999 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledges support for Arafat and the Palestinians
2000 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern condemns the missile attack on the MI6 HQ in London
Photo Credit: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall/Ireland!
2000 – Gardaí arrest a man in connection with the bombing of Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell Street, Dublin, 34 years ago
2001 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announces that Ireland will put its airports, airspace, refuelling facilities and garda intelligence at the disposal of the US in the battle against terrorism.
2006: Golfing history on Irish soil.
The Ryder Cup officially opens at the K Club in Co. Kildare. It is the first time golf’s premier team tournament has come to Ireland and to date, it is the biggest sporting event ever staged in the country.

 

This Weeek in Irish History

September 8
1783 – A second convention of Dungannon – a gathering of Volunteers from Ulster- is held and prepares the way for a National Volunteer convention on parliamentary reform
1798 – Battle of Ballinamuck – last major battle of “The Year of the French”; after a short fight, Humbert surrenders
1812 – John Martin, revolutionary, transportee and politician, is born near Newry, Co. Down
1852 – A conference of the Tenant League in Dublin adopts a policy of independent opposition in Parliament
1908 – Poet, educator and eventual Easter Rising rebel Patrick Pearse opens St. Edna’s school for boys (Scoil Eanna), combining new European theories of education with a focus on the glory of the Gaelic past
1931 – Birth of Desmond Guinness, author and conservationist
1933 – Founding of Fine Gael Party
1998 – A radical Government action plan aiming to cut thousands off the dole is launched
1999 – AB Airlines will cease operations on the Shannon to London Gatwick route at midnight
2000 – US President Bill Clinton announces he will visit Ireland in December
2002 – The Kilkenny Cats beat the Co. Clare Banners and collect their 27th All-Ireland hurling title in front of 76,254 fans at Croke Park

September 9
872 – Earliest verifiable date of a Viking invasion of Ireland in Dunrally
1831 – 30,000 punds is allocated to establish “national” system of elementary education in Ireland
1845 – The arrival of the “potato blight” in Ireland is reported in the Dublin Evening Post
1893 – House of Lords rejects Second Home Rule Bill
1922 – The newly elected Daíl Éireann meets to frame its constitution and elects William T. Cosgrave President of the Executive Committee
2001 – Protestant residents of Ardoyne defy church leaders and politicians by continuing their protest outside north Belfast’s Holy Cross primary school
2001 – Three suspected IRA members – Niall Connolly, Martin McCauley and James Monaghan – are transferred from La Modelo federal prison to a high security jail in Bogota over fears for their safety

September 10
1315 – Battle of Connor. Major victory for Edward Bruce in his invasion of Ulster
1602 – “Red” Hugh O’Donnell dies in Simancas, Spain; evidence suggests he was poisoned by an English spy
1641 – Oliver Cromwell seizes Drogheda
1763 – The Freeman’s Journal is founded in Dublin by Charles Lucas
1831 – Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Fenian, is born in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork
1916 – While serving in the Dublin Fusiliers during World War I, Irish poet Tom Kettle dies in attack on Ginchy
1919 – Dáil Éirean outlawed by the English as a “dangerous association.”
1923 – The Irish Free State is admitted into the League of Nations
1998 – Students queue for food at an emergency soup kitchen and advice centre, set up in a bid to ease the impact of the stress and strain caused by one of the greatest accommodation shortages ever experienced in Dublin
1998 – Gerry Adams and David Trimble finally come face-to-face in an historic move aimed to bring to an end decades of mistrust between the two sides
2001 – Westport, Co. Mayo wins the Tidy Towns competition.

September 11
1649 – Massacre at Drogheda. Cromwell captures the town and slaughters the garrison
1766 – John Bligh, former MP for Athboy, who suffers from the delusion that he is a teapot, marries suddenly and unexpectedly at nearly 50 years of age. Between now and his death in 1781 he will father at least seven children, ‘in spite of his initial alarm that his spout would come off in the night’ 😕
1919 – Dáil Eireann is suppressed as a ‘dangerous association’ by the British government and membership is deemed to be a crime 🙄
1922 – Proportional representation for local elections is abolished in Northern Ireland 😡
1998 – British troops are withdrawn from the streets of Belfast in response to the ongoing republican and loyalist cease-fires
1998 – The Northern Ireland Office announces that more than 200 loyalist and republican prisoners will be freed from the Maze Prison before the end of the year
2000 – Gina Adair, the wife of jailed loyalist paramilitary boss Johnny Adair is thrown out of the public gallery after disrupting proceedings at the Northern Ireland Assembly
2001 – President Mary McAleese goes on RTÉ Radio to express her shock and horror at the terrorist attacks in the US. In the wake of the attacks, the government immediately begins reviewing security arrangements
2002 – In a gesture of support and solidarity, schools, shops and businesses come to a symbolic halt at 1.46pm – the precise moment, Irish time, that the first terrorist hijacked plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in NYC one year ago.
2008 – The Irish government-owned training yacht Asgard sinks in the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of France. All crew and trainees are rescued by the French coastguard after managing to get onto life rafts. They are taken to a hotel on the nearby island of Belle Isle where they are recovering from their ordeal. Trainees pay up to 430 euros to spend a week on board the vessel, which has taken part in Tall Ships events.

September 12
1653 – Ireland and Scotland are represented by six and five members respectively in the ‘Barebones’ parliament which is in effect from 4 July to this date
1798 – Rebels attack Castlebar and are repulsed
1907 – Louis McNeice, poet and classical scholar is born in Belfast
1919 – Dáil Éireann is declared illegal
1951 – Birth of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern
1957 – Birth of Mal Donaghy, former 6C and Manchester United player
2001 – Irish aid agencies pull out of Afghanistan amid growing fears of a possible US retaliation on the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden
2001 – Families in Limerick take in American tourists grounded since 9/11 at Shannon Airport after all flights in and out of the US are cancelled.

September 13
1494 – Edward Poynings, best known for his introduction of “Poynings Law,” which prevented the Irish Parliament from meeting without royal permission and approval of its agenda, is appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland
1803 – Death of John Barry, a native of Ballystampson, Co. Wexford, Commodore in the US Navy and renowned as the Father of the American Navy
1903 – Padraic Pearse arrives in Ros Muc, County Galway and takes up residence at his cottage in Inbhear
1912 – In a speech at Dundee, Winston Churchill announces his support of a policy of devolution for Ireland, Scotland and Wales
1999 – Former US Senator George Mitchell returns to Northern Ireland as he embarks on the second week of his review of the Good Friday Agreement

September 14
1607 – Hugh O’Neill, Ruari O’Donnell and other chiefs of their families depart Lough Swilly for the continent in what has become known as the ‘Flight of the Earls“
1647 – Lord Inchiquin, a royalist turned Parliamentarian, sacks the Irish Catholic Confederate garrison at the Rock of Cashel
1752 – The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Ireland and Britain, 170 years after mainland Europe: 2 September is followed by 14 September. There are protests and riots by people who are convinced that they have lost 12 days out of their lives
1824 – Sir Frederick Falkiner, impoverished former MP for Athy, Co. Dublin and Co. Carlow commits suicide in Naples
1852 – Death of Arthur Wellesley, alias the Duke of Wellington. The Dublin born soldier served as MP for Meath before eventually becoming Prime Minister of Britain:evil:
1955 – Dr. Kathleen Lynn, Irish Citizen Army officer, dies
1971 – Ian Paisley founds the Democratic Unionist Party
1998 – Sinn Fein is warned by First Minister, David Trimble, that it could not take up seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly’s ruling executive until the IRA’s vast armoury of weapons are decommissioned
1999 – UFF “godfather” Johnny Mad Dog Adair is released from the Maze Prison
1999 – The Pro-Agreement parties resume talks with former US Senator George Mitchell during the second week of his review of the Good Friday Agreement
1999 – Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern begins his official visit to Russia
2001 – Following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, as many as 15,000 Irish people are stranded in the US and Canada awaiting flights to Ireland
2001 – The Irish government declares a national day of mourning; schools, businesses and shops are shut down in an unprecedented gesture of sympathy following Tuesday’s attack on the World Trade Center.

 

This Week in Irish History

September 1

1737 – Launch of the Belfast News Letter, now the oldest surviving newspaper in Ireland or Britain, and one of the oldest in the world

1830 – The “Wild Colonial Boy” is shot dead in a gun battle with police at Cambelltown, Sydney. Contrary to the popular song, “The Wild Colonial Boy” was John Donohue, transported from Ireland in 1824

1856 – Birth of Irish Nationalist Party leader John Redmond in Ballytrent, Co. Wexford

1864 – Roger Casement, British consular official and Irish nationalist, is born in Sandycove, Co. Dublin

1870 – Isaac Butt founds the Home Government Association; Home Rule is now the objective of constitutional nationalists

2000 – The number of people out of work falls to an 18-year low

2002 – Hugh Orde, Northern Ireland’s new chief constable vows to crack down on paramilitary “godfathers” who have orchestrated a series of unsolved sectarian murders.

September 2

1022 – Maelsechlainn II – “The great high king of Ireland” – dies
1649 – Siege of Drogheda begins
1752 – The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Ireland and Britain, 170 years after mainland Europe: 2 September is followed by 14 September
1893 – Second Home Rule Bill passed by House of Commons
1933 – Cummann na nGaedheal, the Centre Party, and the National Guard, once known as the “Blueshirts”, join forces to form Fine Gael
1942 – IRA Volunteer Tom Williams is hanged at Belfast’s Crumlin Road Jail
1998 – Sinn Féin formally nominate Mid-Ulster MP Martin McGuinness as its representative to work with the International Commission on Decommissioning
2002 – Ireland (Eire, Free State) forms an alliance with Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Greece in a bid to limit the expansion of nuclear energy
2002 – A Commission which includes loyalist paramilitaries calls on republican terror groups to join them in achieving calm along sectarian flashpoint areas.

September 3

1654 – The first Protectorate parliament meets; Ireland is represented by 30 members
1781 – Birth of William Sharman Crawford, radical politician, in Co. Down
1821 – The last day of George IV’s visit to Ireland
1842 – In Kill, Co. Kildare, birth of John Devoy, journalist and leading member of the Fenians
1850 – Charters are granted to colleges in Belfast (now Queen’s University), Cork (now UCC) and Galway (now UCG), under the Universities (Ireland) Act
1854 – Birth of Fanny Parnell, Land League agitator and sister of Charles Stewart Parnell
1905 – Birth of James “Snowy” Dunne, widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest centre forwards. He played for Arsenal, Southampton and the Shamrock Rovers
1943 – Birth of Liam Maguire, trade unionist and campaigner for disabled people
1963 – Death of poet Louis MacNeice
1972 – Mary Peters wins the women’s pentathlon in Munich and becomes the first Irish woman to win an Olympic Gold medal
1998 – Near the scene of the explosion, US President Bill Clinton and British Premier Tony Blair unveil a plaque in memory of the Omagh bombing victims
1998 – New Garda powers come into force which open the way for a clampdown on hardline extremists
2000 – Dom Columba Marmion, a Dublin priest who is credited with curing an American woman of cancer, is beatified by Pope John Paul II
In the liturgical calendar, it is the feast day of St. MacNis, baptised by St. Patrick, and later consecrated Bishop by the Saint.

September 4

1798 – Cornwallis moves forward from Tuam to attack Castlebar
Humbert leaves Castlebar with 800 French troops and 1000 Irish rebels and moves into Co Sligo. His plan is to march to Ulster. Humbert marches all night. Rising takes place in Longford and Westmeath
1844 – Conspiracy judgment against Daniel O’Connell is reversed by House of Lords
1851 – John Dillon, Nationalist politician, is born in Blackrock, Co. Dublin
1922 – Dónal Foley, journalist, humorist and author of ‘Man Bites Dog’ column in the Irish Times, is born in Ring, Co. Waterford
1976 – Women protest against men-only bathing at the Forty Foot in Sandycove.

September 5

1690 – Having failed to take Limerick, William leaves Ireland
1724 – In the guise of an Irish Patriot , M. B. Drapier, Jonathan Swift publishes “Drapier Letter III” – one of a series of letters designed to incite the people against a new coinage
1771 – Benjamin Franklin’s visit to Ireland begins
1785 – Edmond Sexton Pery resigns as Speaker of the Irish parliament on grounds of ill health. John Foster is unanimously elected to replace him
1798 – Humbert defeats small government force at Collooney, but suffers serious casualties; he camps at Dromahair. Longford rebels attack Granard and are routed. Westmeath rebels occupy Wilson’s Hospital
1930 – The first edition of the Irish Press, a Dublin daily newspaper founded by De Valera as a platform for Fianna Fáil, is published
1934 – Birth of Kevin McNamara MP, former Labour spokesman on Northern Ireland
1950 – Birth of Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, Fianna Fáil politician
1998 – President Clinton follows in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy and becomes a Freeman of Limerick. Today marks the end of his three-day visit to Ireland
1999 – History comes alive at Phoenix Park as the beating of the Millennium Drum signals the beginning of a week long celebration of Irish history and heritage
2000 – The Church of Ireland criticises Portadown Orange Order leader Harold Gracey for refusing to condemn the violence surrounding the Drumcree protest
2001 – The violent scenes of sectarian hatred witnessed at the Holy Cross school in Belfast make headlines in newspapers all over the world
2002 – US-owned communications equipment firm, Tellabs, announces it will close its Shannon plant in December with the loss of more than 400 jobs.
September 6
1798 – Humbert marches to Drumkeeran. Lake is still tailing Humbert
1813 – Isaac Butt, barrister, politician and founder of the Home Rule movement, is born in Glenfin, Co. Donegal
1831 – Birth in Rosscarbery, Co. Cork of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, one of the founders of the Fenian Brotherhood
1974 – 19 Prisoners escape from Porlaoise Prison
1981 – Death of Christy Brown, the handicapped Dublin author, who learned to type with his left foot
1994 – Prime Minister of Dublin government meets with Sinn Fein President for the first time since the ratification of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty
2002 – Death of Bobby Clancy of the Clancy Brothers.

September 7

1695 – Penal Laws are passed which restrict the rights of Catholics to have an education, to bear arms, or to possess a horse worth more than five pounds
1798 – Humbert crosses Shannon at Ballintra and camps at Cloone. Cornwallis crosses Shannon. Rebels at Wilson’s Hospital are routed; this ends the rebellion in the midlands
1823 – Kevin Izod O’Doherty, transportee, physician and politician, is born in Dublin
1892 – John L. Sullivan loses his world heavyweight boxing title to another Irish American, James Corbett
1921 – Frank Duff founds the Association of Our Lady of Mercy, later to be known as the Legion of Mary
1948 – Taoiseach John A.Costello declares the Irish Free State a Republic
1980 – Galway wins the All Ireland Final
2001 – It is announced that US President George Bush is sending his special envoy, Richard Haass, to Northern Ireland to sound out parties on the ailing peace process.

 

This week in History

July 15
1879 – Joseph Campbell, poet, is born in Belfast. He is famous for the English words he wrote to the song My Lagan Love
1899 – Sean Lemass is born in Dublin. He was the second leader of Fianna Fáil and third Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland from 1959 to 1966
1927 – Countess Constance de Markievicz, Irish patriot, dies
1930 – After De Valera abolishes the oath of allegiance and withholds land annuities from the British Government, retaliatory trade legislation begins the ‘economic war’
1942 – Brendan (‘Paddy’) Finucane from Dublin – the RAF’s youngest ever Wing Commander at 21 years of age – is shot down and killed off the French coast
1998 – The Irish Nurses Organisation warns that the shortage of qualified nurses has reached crisis levels
1999 – It’s revealed that since 1998, all telephone, e-mail and fax messages between Ireland and Britain, and probably the United States, were tapped by the British Government

July 16
1803 – Following an explosion at his arms depot on this date, Robert Emmet brings forward his planned rebellion in Dublin to 23 July
1929 – The Censorship of Publications Act is passed
1999 – Olympic champion Michelle de Bruin is stripped of her Irish swimming records; the triple gold medal winner at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was banned for four years by the FINA in August of 1998 for tampering with a urine sample
2000 – The All Party Committee on the Constitution rejects total ban on abortion
2002 – The IRA leadership issues a statement which includes an apology for the killing of ‘non-combatants.’ Northern Ireland secretary, Dr John Reid, welcomes the gesture as one of unprecedented strength.

July 17
1846 – Birth of Fenian, John McLure. He is one of 30 Fenian prisoners released in a general amnesty by the British government on January 5, 1871. They are released on condition that they exile themselves to the country of their choice and not return until their sentences have expired. Many choose to go to Australia, but John McClure, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, John Devoy, Henry Mulleda and Charles Underwood O’Connell, who had all been imprisoned together, decide to go to America and ship out from Liverpool on board the “Cuba.” The so-called ‘Cuba Five’ arrive in New York to a hero’s welcome and even receive a resolution of welcome from the US House of Representatives
1884 – Louise Gavan Duffy, teacher and revolutionary, is born in Nice
1945 – Shannon Airport and customs free zone opened
1951 – Dublin’s Abbey Theatre is destroyed by fire
2002 – New birth figures show that one in three children in Ireland are born out of wedlock.

July 18
1561 – Battle of Red Sagums – Shane O’Neill defeats English
1579 – James Fitzmaurice lands forces in Dingle with the intention of encouraging an uprising against England
1689 – The Mountjoy ship breaks the blockading boom and ends the Siege of Derry after 238 days
1794 – Feargus O’Connor, a leader of the Chartist movement, is born in Connorville, Co. Cork
1870 – Michael Davitt is sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude for gun-running
1874 – Cathal Brugha (Charles Burgess) an anti-Treaty nationalist,is born in Dublin
1920 – 19 people are killed in four days of sectarian violence in Derry
1951 – The Abbey Theatre in Dublin burns down. The play that evening closed with soldiers on stage singing, “Keep the Home Fires Burning”.
1966 – The rebuilt Abbey Theatre re-opens
1970 – After having been in prison for unlawful assembly and breach of peace, the “anti-popery” Reverend Ian Paisley is elected to Westminster

July 19
1608 – Preparations commence for the plantation of six Ulster counties (Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone)
1735 – Garrett Wellesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, politician, musician, and father of Duke of Wellington, is born in Dublin
1982 – Dexy’s Midnight Runners reach No. 1 in the British charts with Come On Eileen
1998 – Garvan McGinley, national organizer of the Progressive Democrat Party resigns
1998 – It is confirmed that three chaplains have quit the Orange Order and another dozen are considering their future in the wake of the Drumcree stand-off and the murders of the Quinn children in Ballymoney
1999 – Amnesty International honors its longest serving member in Ireland, Iris Bardon, with a presentation on her 100th birthday.

July 20
1616 – Death in Rome of Hugh O’Neill, 3rd Baron Dungannon and 2nd Earl of Tyrone. He led an unsuccessful uprising against the English, and was eventually forced into exile as part of “the Flight of Earls.”
1798 – Rebel camp at Timahoe surrenders
1835 – First report of the select committee on Orangeism is presented to the House of Commons
1922 – The Free State army takes Limerick from the anti-treaty Republicans
1933 – Eoin O’Duff becomes leader of the National Guard (‘Blueshirts’)
1982 – The IRA kills ten servicemen in bomb attacks in Hyde Park and Regent’s Park, London
1998 – Seven-year old Adele Chapman from Derry leaves hospital; 12 weeks earlier, she became Britains first triple-organ transplant child when she underwent a pioneering liver, pancreas and small bowel transplant at Birmingham Children’s Hospital

July 21
1750 – Under-Secretary Waite reports to Chief Secretary Weston that “This morning I am informed that Lord Allen and Captain Eustace of Irvine’s have slit if not cut off a great part of a gentleman’s nose in a fray which happened a day or two ago in the road between Dublin and Naas. The occasion of it was very trifling, such as the gentleman returning the salutation of a fellow which they gave him and which they thought proper to deem an affront upon persons of their rank and in red coats.” The victim, a Mr. Butler from Co. Tipperary, indicts Allen and Eustace in the courts; Waite writes on 11 August that Allen “will have three or four Butlers to fight after they have harassed him by due course of law”
1903 – Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visit Ireland
1920 – 12 people die in Belfast riots which take place from 21-24 July
1920 – Sectarian violence continues in Derry
1920 – Catholics are forced out of Dromore, Co. Down following the funeral of an RIC man
1922 – The Free State army takes Waterford from the anti-treaty Republicans
1964 – Steve Collins, World Middleweight Boxing Champion, is born in Dublin
1972 – ‘Bloody Friday’ in Belfast; the Provisional IRA kills 19 and injures 130 in 22 bomb attacks

 

This week in Irish History

June 1
1762 – Birth in Callan, Co. Kilkenny of Edmund Ignatius Rice, educator, philanthropist, and the founder of the Irish Christian Brothers' Order
1852 – The Magnetc Telegraph Company links Britain and Ireland via submarine telegraph cable. The company also operates lines from Donaghadee to Portpatrick, and connects major Irish cities, as far as Limerick, Killarney and Cork
1866 – Renegade Irish Fenians invade Ft. Erie Ontario from the US
1919 – Eamon DeValera begins his tour of the USA to raise money and support for the IRA's war against England
1998 – The Irish and British Governments search for common ground on the parades crisis, amid growing indications that the summer marching season will push the North to the brink of open sectarian warfare

June 2
1567 – The Ulster chieftain, Shane O'Neill, takes refuge with the MacDonnells, and is murdered by them at Cushendun, Co. Antrim. He is succeeded by Turlough Luineach O'Neill
1705 – The town of Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh is virtually destroyed by an accidental fire. One hundred and fourteen families and their servants suffer severe losses, and the barracks of her Majesty (Queen Anne) sustains great damage, the total loss being computed at 7,911 pound 13 s. 4d. A memorial is presented to the Lord Lieutenant from the Provost and Corporation, asking for the benefit of a full collection from house to house throughout the Kingdom, and in all Cathedrals and Parish Churches. It sets forth that " they never in the late reign nor in this applied to their Majesties for any relief or reward for their services and sufferings (in 1641 and 1688-90) when they had to maintain many thousands of poor stript Protestants who came for protection. But now being poor, disconsolate and entirely ruined, so that they have neither house to go into, beds to lie on, nor wherewithal to buy bread, may it please your Grace to grant your Petitioners the benefit of a full collection." Ed’s note. Oh the Irony
1772 – An Act of Parliament allows Catholics to lease bogland
1774 – An act of the Irish parliament enables Catholics to testify their allegiance to the king
1866 – Renegade Irish Fenians surrender to US forces
1891 – A proposal for the penalty kick is accepted by the Football Association. It is the brainchild of Armagh's William McCrum and is championed by his colleague in the Irish Association, Jack Reid
1949 – The Ireland Act is passed in Westminster, declaring the special relationship of Irish citizens to the United Kingdom and guaranteeing Northern Ireland's status within the UK
1954 – John Costello becomes premier of Ireland
1956 – Joan Littlewood's production of Brendan Behan's play The Quare Fella opens at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, gaining Behan international recognition for the first time
2002 – It is announced that Progressive Democrats president Michael McDowell is to be appointed justice minister in the coalition cabinet. Ed’s note. Probably the worst appointment in recent 26 county history
2002 – The World Cup football squad is officially welcomed to their new training camp in Chiba city in the coastal surburbs of southern Tokyo with a reception in a specially created Irish Village in the grounds of the team hotel

June 3
1798 – Government reinforces Gorey and Bunclody, Co. Wexford. Rebels decide to attack Gorey
1878 – Sinéad de Valera, née Flanagan; teacher and writer, is born in Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
1919 – The Local Government Act provides for proportional representation at local authority elections
1963 – Pope John XXIII dies the age of 81. He is succeeded by Pope Paul VI
1972 – A Protestant march against the creation of "no-go" areas in Londonderry ends in a bloody battle on the Craigavon Bridge. Soldiers use rubber bullets and water cannon to control the crowd when the so-called "Tartan gangs" at the tail end of the march begin to throw bottles and stones at the Army
1974 – Michael Gaughan dies on hunger strike at Parkhurst Prison in England
1991 – Three IRA gunmen are shot dead by British soldiers as they drive through the village of Coagh, Co. Tyrone. Their car is hit by a hail of bullets, before crashing and bursting into flames
1998 – The Prince of Wales meets with the political spokesmen for loyalist paramilitary groups at a garden party hosted by Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam. The Prince also meets victims of terrorist violence and presents others with MBEs. The event at Hillsborough Castle is attended by 2,500 people including Gary McMichael and David Adams of the Ulster Democratic Party. The garden party, which Sinn Féin leaders had refused to attend because of the Prince's links to the Parachute Regiment, is the highlight of his hectic two-day visit. Representatives of the DUP are also present – less than a week after party leader Ian Paisley brands the Queen a "parrot"
2000 – Cathal Crumley, a former IRA prisoner faces unionist anger as he prepares to become the first Sinn Féin Mayor in Ireland since 1920
2000 – Security chiefs in the North come under fire after further reductions in troop levels following the increased threat posed by the Real IRA
2001 – It is announced that the Irish immigration authorities are to open special visa offices in Bejing and Moscow. The move is aimed at speeding up the entry of Chinese and Russian workers and students to Ireland
2002 – Residents of east Belfast begin clearing up following another night of sectarian violence that saw armed gunmen on the streets of the city. Tension remains high in the area around the nationalist Short Strand enclave as both communities brace themselves for a fresh bout of sectarian violence

June 4
1487 – Thomas FitzGerald, Kildare's brother, accompanies Simnel's army of German mercenaries and some Irishmen to England on this date
1651 – Ireton, Oliver Cromwell's son-in-law, lays siege to Limerick city. By October, Limerick is in Ireton's hands. Ireton dies of the plague shortly afterwards
1731 – Allegedly, the date when the robbery of the Golden Lyon's cargo takes place at Ballyheige Co. Kerry. Owned by the Danish East India Company, the ship had become stranded near Ballyheige, Co. Kerry. Its valuable cargo is moved into a house and guarded by troops, but 'About twelve or one in the night a number of men broke into the house at Ballyheige where the money chests were kept, wounded three of the Danes and carried it off.' Eventually, about ten of the robbers are apprehended and charged, and approximately £7,524 2s is recovered
1798 – In Co. Wexford, Government troops march south out of Gorey. Rebels from Carrigrew move north, they attack and defeat Government forces at Tubberneering. Government forces withdraw north. Rebels occupy Gorey
1798 – Lord Edward Fitzgerald dies at Newgate prison from wounds sustained in the course of his arrest
1820 – Henry Grattan, the moving force behind the Irish Parliament at College Green before it was dissolved by the Act of Union, dies and is buried – against his wishes – in Westminster Abbey
1864 – Neilí Ni Bhriain, Irish Gaelic League activist, is born
1886 – Months of serious rioting begin in Belfast on this date
1909 – Charlotte Grace O'Brien, Irish social reformer dies
1980 – John Tunley, Protestant Irish nationalist, is assassinated
1998 – Amid strict security, His Royal Highness, the Duke of Kent makes a courtesy visit to Lifeboat Stations in Cork and Kerry in his role as President of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI)

June 5
1646 – Eoghan Rua O'Neill, a superb military strategist, defeats Robert Munro’s Scottish army at Benburb in Co. Tyrone. The victory is celebrated by Pope Innocent X with a Te Deum in Rome
1686 – Richard Talbot, the Earl of Tyrconnell, appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, (the first Catholic to hold the position since the Reformation) becomes Commander-in-Chief of the Irish army
1795 – An Act provides for the establishment of a Catholic seminary
1798 – Defeat of the rebels at New Ross, Co. Wexford
1798 – The Reverend William Steel Dickson, a Presbyterian minister and United Irishmen supporter is arrested and imprisoned without trial
1868 – James Connolly is born of Irish parents in Edinburgh
1880 – Birth in Dublin of William Thomas Cosgrave, the first President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State
1916 – Death of Listowel man Lord Kitchener
1921 – The first sitting of the Northern Ireland Parliament takes place
1932 – Birth of Christy Brown, paraplegic painter and writer. His book “Down All the Days” and the film “My Left Foot” are based on his life. Ed’s note. The Pogues done a song about him called “Down all the Days”. I think
1968 – Robert Kennedy is seriously injured in shooting after victory speech
2000 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair issues an apology to the Guilford Four 11 years after they had been released from prison where they each spent 15 years on a trumped up conviction
2002 – Former US President Bill Clinton travels to Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, to open a £3m peace centre named after him in recognition of his special role in helping the divided North’s community towards the Good Friday Agreement. The centre is built on the site of the 1987 Remembrance Sunday bombing
2003 – Relics of one of the best loved and admired saints, St Anthony of Padua, arrive in Ireland for a special tour of churches in Dublin and Carlow. The remains, contained in a statue of the Franciscan monk, are received at Fairview Church by Cardinal Desmond Connell and the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto.

June 6
1333 – William de Burgh, Earl of Ulster -'the Brown Earl'-is assassinated by his own knights, John de Logan and two of the de Mandevilles, at Le Ford, Belfast. The background is one of intrigue among Norman-Irish lords: William has driven de Mandeville out of Ulster and has starved his own kinsman, Walter de Burgh, to death at Northburgh Castle. His death is followed by a rising of the de Mandevilles and de Logans, allied with the Gaelic Irish of Ulster
1592 – Red Hugh O'Donnell, son of the Earl of Tyrconnell makes a dramatic escape from the Record Tower and returns to Co. Donegal and the leadership of his Clan
1763 – William Simms, a founder and secretary of the United Irishmen, is born
1798 – General Needham reaches Arklow in Co. Wexford and immediately begins digging trenches
1798 – Rebellion breaks out in Ulster: Henry Joy McCracken issues proclamation calling United Irishmen in Ulster to arms
1800 – Ordination of the first priests at St Patrick's College, Maynooth. The college was founded in 1795 as the National Seminary for Ireland
1880 – Birth of William Thomas Cosgrave – Irish statesman and father of Liam Cosgrave*. A member of Sinn Féin, he fought in the Easter Rebellion and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Freed a year later, he was elected to the British Parliament in 1918 but protested British rule by refusing to take his seat. He helped organize an independent Irish Assembly, the Dáil Éireann in 1919. Minister for local government in the revolutionary cabinet, Cosgrave supported the 1921 treaty with Great Britain that set up the Irish Free State. After the deaths of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, he was elected president and served from 1922 to 1932. He was opposition leader of his Fine Gael, or United Ireland Party from 1932 until his resignation in 1944
1882 – In Liverpool, Mayo native-son and hero, Michael Davitt, advocates land nationalization in preference to peasant proprietorship

*Liam Cosgrave was Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977

June 7
1420 – A parliament meets at Dublin
1546 – England signs Peace of Andres with Ireland and Scotland
1705 – Francis Flood, grandfather of Henry Flood, is expelled from the House of Commons for abuses against Agmondisham Cuffe MP, Cuffe's tenants and others in Co. Kilkenny
1766 – The Tumultuous Risings Act, against the Whiteboys, is passed
1798 – Father James Coigly is executed by hanging at Pennington Heath. A member of the United Irishmen, he had been arrested in Margate, England as he was about to embark for France. Papers found on his person indicate that his intention is to invite the French Directory to land an army in England. He is found guilty of high treason
1798 – In Wicklow, the Rebels burn Carnew; in Ulster, they take Larne and the Larne garrison retreats to Carrickfergus. The Rebels take Ballymena and Randalstown and then attack Antrim. They also attack Maghea in Co Derry
1866 – Irish Fenians raid Pigeon Hill, Quebec
1892 – Birth of Irish statesman, Kevin Christopher O'Higgins in Stradbally, Co. Laois. He attempted severe repression of the Irish Republican Army in the years of the Irish “Troubles” following the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. A man of intellectual power, he is described as “a soul incapable of remorse or rest” and – by William Butler Yeats – “a great man in his pride confronting…"
1921 – George V opens the first Northern Ireland Parliament. James Craig becomes Northern Ireland's first Prime Minister
1999 – British Prime Minister Tony Blair urges an immediate Downing Street meeting in a fresh bid to end the disarmament deadlock threatening the future of the Northern Ireland peace process

 

This week in Irish History

May 22
1805 – Michael Doheny, poet and Young Irelander, is born near Fethard, Co. Tipperary
1849 – Novelist, Maria Edgeworth, dies in Mostrim, Co. Longford. She is laid to rest in a vault at Edgeworthstown Church. The Great Famine which decimates the people she loves mars her last years. Even though in her late seventies, she worked strenuously for the relief of the stricken peasants at the height of the famine. She shows the same involvement and generosity throughout her entire life and devotes her best talents to the betterment of the people of her adoption. Her books on the Irish people bring her world fame and the acclaim of such writers as Sir Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Byron and the Russian writer Turgenev.
1870 – Birth of Eva Gore-Booth, poet, trade unionist and feminist, on the Lissadell Estate in Co. Sligo
1932 – Death of Augusta Persse, better known as Lady Augusta Gregory, Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre director; also a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre
1941 – Caitlin Maude, Irish language activist, is born
1946 – George Best, the greatest player of his generation apart from Jimmy Johnonstone and the world's first superstar footballer, is born in Belfast
1971 – Members of the Irish Women's Liberation Movement defy the law by bringing contraceptives bought in Belfast into Connolly railway station in Dublin
1995 – U.S. President Bill Clinton approves a visa for Irish nationalist leader Gerry Adams to enter the United States
1998 – The Good Friday Agreement is overwhelmingly endorsed in referendums North (71%) and South (94%)
2003 – Hurling reaches its highest peak when Gerard McDonnell from Limerick brought the spirit of the GAA to Mount Everest; he sent a ball flying above 29,000 feet
2003 – The Official Languages Bill 2002, introduced by the Minister for the Gaeltacht, Mr Ó Cuív, will give citizens the right to conduct their business with any State agency or Government department, in Irish.

May 23
1561 – The first court of High Commission, a group of officials and Protestant clergy, is set up to enforce the Reformation in Ireland
1754 – Birth of Dr. William Drennan in Belfast; physician, poet, educationalist political radical and one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen. Drennan's poetic output included some powerful and moving pieces. He is chiefly remembered today for "Erin" written in 1800, in which he penned the first reference in print to Ireland as "the Emerald Isle":
"Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile
The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle."
Interestingly, he himself is quoted as saying that this expression was first used in a party song called “Erin, to her own Tune,” written in 1795. The song appears to have been anonymous
1794 – As part of a crack-down on seditious activity during Britain's war with France, the Dublin United Irishmen are supressed
1798 – United Irish Rebellion begins in Wexford
1798 – United Irish rebellion begins in Leinster
1920 – Oliver Plunkett is beatified by Pope Benedict XV 1920 – Railway workers refuse to transport troops from this date
1966 – Birth of GAA footballer, Paul McGrath
1998 – Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, welcomes the resounding "yes" vote in the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland, calling it "a day for joy"
2002 – The long simmering division between Roy Keane and manager Mick McCarthy erupts into a huge row and Keane is expelled from the World Cup squad.

May 24
1628 – 51 'graces' to Irish interest groups by Charles I are promised but various excuses are used not to grant these concessions
1798 – Archibald Hamilton Jacob conducts the Enniscorthy Yeomen Cavalry to the village of Ballaghkeen where they flog a man to death
1813 – A Catholic Relief Bill is introduced by Grattan in the House of Commons, and is narrowly defeated 251 to 247
1882 – Creighton Hale, actor, is born in Cork
1921 – 1st parliament for Northern Ireland is elected
1987 – A referendum in the Republic approves the Single European Act
1998 – Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams signals that the terrorist war is over and that the gun can finally be removed from Irish politics
1998 – Less than 24 hours after people on both sides of the border gave a resounding Yes to the Stormont peace agreement, dissident republican terrorists cause widespread disruption on the Belfast-Dublin railway line after a suspicious object is found on the line near Lurgan
1998 – Director John Boorman wins the Best Director prize for The General, about real life Dublin gang leader, Martin Cahill
2000 – According to a report published on this date, 1 in 10 homeless people in London are Irish
2000 – Two more members of David Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Assembly team are to oppose his plan to return to power sharing with Sinn Féin
2003 – Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, meet Sinn Féin's chief negotiators Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in Dublin for talks.

May 25
1315 – Edward Bruce (brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scots), having been invited by some Gaelic chiefs, leads an expedition to Ireland with the aim of conquering it, creating a kingdom of Ireland and driving out the Norman-Irish settlers. He lands at Larne on this date and is proclaimed king of Ireland
1705 – On this date, May Eustace Sherlock, gentleman, petitions the Commons for relief from 'the great oppressions he lies under, by the undue practices and power of Maurice Annesley, a Justice of the Peace'. Annesley is an MP. The ensuing complicated legal case will eventually result in the passing by the British parliament of the 1720 Declaratory Act confirming the British House of Lords as the final Court of Appeal for Irish cases
1830 – As a result of growing Unitarianism the General Synod reinforces subscription. Henry Montgomery, the leading Unitarian protagonist, leads a secession of Non-subscribers from the General Synod which establishes the Remonstrant Synod of Ulster. The Remonstrant Synod joins with the earlier Presbytery of Antrim in 1910 to form the Non-subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland
1842 – Birth on Valentia Island, Co. Kerry, of Helen Blackburn, early leader of the movement for the emancipation of women
1885 – Gerald Boland, nationalist politician, is born in Manchester
1870 – Irish Fenians raid Eccles Hill, Québec
1895 – Oscar Wilde is sentenced to two years imprisonment for offences “against public decency”
1912 – First issue of the weekly suffrage magazine, Irish Citizen, appears
1914 – British House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule for the third time
1921 – The Dublin brigade of the IRA attacks and sets fire to the Customs House; 120 of its men are captured and 11 are killed
1960 – Packie Bonner, Celtic and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper, in Burtonport, Co. Donegal
2003 – Brendan McCann, one of the most acclaimed photographers in Northern Ireland's history dies in Belfast Mater Hospital, aged 75.
In a career spanning 50 years, he covers some of the darkest hours of the Troubles.

May 26
1562 – Following his submission to Elizabeth at Whitehall in January, Shane O'Neill returns to Ireland on this date
1650 – Oliver Cromwell leaves Ireland on board the frigate President Bradshaw. His deputy and son-in-law, Henry Ireton takes control of the Irish campaign and captures Birr Castle
1798 – The rebels are defeated at Tara Hill; this marks the end of the rebellion in Co. Meath. Rebellion begins in Co. Wexford. Fr. John Murphy and local people confront the Camolin yeomanry at The Harrow. Thomas Bookey, Lieutenant of the yeomanry, is killed
1867 – Michael Barrett from Kesh, Co. Fermanagh is executed for his part in the explosion at Clerkenwell Gaol. From all the evidence, it is likely he is not guilty. He is the last man to be publicly hanged in England.
1873 – Trinity College Dublin abolishes all remaining religious restrictions for entry, with the exception of the Faculty of Divinity
1897 – First publication of Dracula, written by Dublin man Abraham ‘Bram’ Stoker
1950 – End of petrol rationing in Northern Ireland 1972 – The Special Criminal Court, with three judges and no jury, is set up in the Republic

May 27
1224 – Cathal Crovderg O'Connor, king of Connacht and brother of Rory O'Connor, dies at the age of 72. This finally opens the way for the Norman occupation of Connacht
1595 – Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, defeats the English forces of his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Bagenal, at the Battle of Clontibret, Co. Monaghan; he is proclaimed a traitor at Newry in June
1648 – Giovanni Rinuccini, papal nuncio to the confederates, excommunicates adherents of the truce between confederates and Inchiquin
1798 – Wexford rebels massacre Kingsborough's militiamen and yeomanry at Oulart
1877 – Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is born in Co. Limerick. A committed suffragette, she is one of the founding members of the Irish Womens Franchise League; sexual equality remains a primary concern throughout for her despite a slight shift in focus after the summary execution of her husband in 1916
1966 – The UVF shoot and mortally wound John Scullion, a Catholic civilian, in the Clonard area of west Belfast 1998 – Actor Brendan Gleeson strongly defends his lead role in the controversial £6m film The General, rebutting criticism that it attempts to portray the assassinated Dublin gangster Martin Cahill as a latter-day Robin Hood
2001 – The breakaway Real IRA is believed to be behind a rocket attack on Strabane RUC station which sparks a five-hour security alert. No-one is injured but 12 families are evacuated from their homes during the follow-up security operation in the Co.Tyrone town
2001 – Fears of a long, difficult summer are growing after 57 RUC officers are injured in clashes with nationalist youths on the flashpoint Garvaghy Road in Portadown following a Junior Orange parade
2003 – It is announced that the Royal Irish Regiment is to be scrapped as part of a major plan to cut troop numbers in the North. British military authorities plan to abolish all three Home Service battalions, comprising nearly 3,000 soldiers under a new deal to break the deadlock in the peace process
2003 – FAI and Communications Minister Dermot Ahern announces that all Republic of Ireland competitive soccer internationals will now be available free on RTÉ.

May 28
1590 – Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, agrees to abandon further attempts at extending his territory in the north, and undertakes to force his people to adopt English laws and customs
1779 – Poet and songwriter, Thomas Moore, is born in Dublin
1798 – In the first Battle of Enniscorthy, the rebels take the town
1947 – Róis Ni Ógain – Rose Mabel Young – Gaelic scholar and editor of Duanaire Gaedhilge, dies
1970 – Charles Haughey, who will later be acquitted and become Taoiseach, is arrested with Niall Blaney for conspiracy to import arms
1974 – General strike by Unionists brings down the Sunningdale power-sharing agreement and Northern Ireland is returned to direct rule
1999 – The Provisional IRA produces the remains of Eamon Molloy, whom it killed in 1975; information from the IRA leads to several protracted searches in the Republic for the remains of other victims
2000 – A plaque to commemorate the first Irish meeting of the Orange Order is unveiled in Dublin – without a single member of the hardline Protestant group in attendance. The Dublin and Wicklow Lodge boycott the event on Dawson St in protest at its treatment over a march in the city, also planned for this date
2000 – The decision by Ulster Unionists to return to power sharing with Sinn Féin at midnight on 29 May is given a massive boost when the IRA pledges to keep their part of the bargain
2003 – James Plunkett, best known for his epic novel of Dublin, 'Strumpet City', dies at the age of 83

May 29
1205 – King John makes Hugh de Lacy Earl of Ulster
1666 – The Act of Uniformity confirms Guy Fawkes' day (5 November) as an anniversary, and adds 30 January (execution of Charles I) and 29 May (the Restoration)
1722 – Birth of James Fitzgerald, 20th Earl of Kildare; Duke of Leinster; politician and Lord Justice
1798 – On this date, under the command of Father Murphy of Boolavogue, a priest who had been in dispute with his bishop and who had reluctantly stepped forward as leader, the Wexford insurgents, gaining strength as they advance, storm Enniscorthy. The defences of the town are swept aside by means of a stampede of cattle. Elsewhere, General Sir James Duff arrives in Monasterevin where he augments his forces before marching on to Kildare and the Gibbet Rath. On this same date, the insurgents camp on Vinegar Hill, outside Enniscorthy town. In the north, the Ulster Directory of the United Irishmen meets to plan rebellion in counties Antrim and Down
1884 – Oscar Wilde and Constance Lloyd are married
1917 – Birth of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th US president, in Brookline, Mass
1936 – The Free State Senate (upper house of parliament) is abolished
1953 – Death of James Downey; at the time he is probably the most famous publican (pub-owner) in the world for bringing to an end the longest ever pub strike. Downey’s premises in Dun Laoghaire had been the focus of a union dispute for 14 years, and brought the pub world fame
1974 – Northern Ireland is brought under direct rule from Westminster
1999 – Thirteen RUC officers are injured as tensions explode on the streets of Portadown with both Loyalist and Nationalist rioters venting their fury in the wake of a banned parade along the lower Garvaghy Road
2001 – Irish artists take a stand against racism by donating original works to a special fund-raising auction. Over 100 works by both new and established Irish artists go under the hammer at the Le Chéile auction in the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin 2002 – Former Taoiseach Charles Haughey is €2.2m richer following the auction of a tiny part of his extensive Abbeville art collection
2002 – Arts Minister Síle de Valera hails the State’s acquisition of a previously unseen collection of original manuscripts by James Joyce as “a monumental event in Ireland’s literary and cultural history”. The collection, stored in Paris for many years, consists of 500 sheets of handwritten notes by the author. It includes notes and drafts by Joyce on several works including his classics, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, as well as notebooks dating from the early 1900s
2003 – According to the Eurydice report, Ireland has the largest number of children per class in Europe and our teachers have to work longer than most to earn the top salary
2003 – Thousands of republicans and nationalists join in a series of protests across the country to mark the cancelled date for the North’s Assembly elections.

May 30
1630 – Birth of Charles Stuart who will become Charles II of Great Britain and Ireland
1784 – Belfast's first Catholic church, St. Mary's, opens for public worship
1798 – Following the massacre of Kingsborough's militiamen and yeomanry at Oulart on 27 May, rebels capture Enniscorthy and Wexford town
1807 – During the election for Co. Wexford, two of the candidates, William Congreve Alcock and John Colclough, fight a duel in front of the county sheriff, 16 magistrates and a large crowd of spectators. Alcock shoots Colclough dead; he is elected; he is also tried and acquitted for killing Colclough, but his mind is badly affected; two years later, he will be confined in an asylum for the insane
1844 – Daniel O'Connell is fined and sentenced to 12 months in prison for 'conspiracy'
1906 – Death of Michael Davitt, "Father" of the Irish Land League. He was born at the height of the Great Famine. At four, his family was evicted and forced to emigrate to England. He joined the Fenians in 1865, became organizing secretary and was arrested in 1870 for arms smuggling. Released after seven years, he returned to County Mayo as a national hero. His travels in Connaught showed conditions had not improved. Realising that, if the power of the tenant farmers could be organised, it would be possible to bring about improvement, he arranged a convention in August of 1879. The result was a body called the National Land League of Mayo. Thus began the land agitation movement. For more details on the life of Michael Davitt, click Museums of Mayo
1944 – Eamon de Valera is returned as Taoiseach
1951 – Fianna Fáil regains power in a general election
1969 – Irish nationalist and the first Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, Robert Briscoe, dies in Dublin
1972 – The Official IRA announces a ceasefire, but the Provisional IRA says it will continue fighting until the British leave Northern Ireland
1973 – In a political upset, Erskine Childers defeats Tom O'Higgins by a very narrow margin and is elected President of Ireland
1983 – The new Ireland Forum of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the SDLP meets in Dublin
1986 – Connacht Regional Airport at Knock, Co. Mayo (now Horan International) is officially opened by Charles Haughey
2000 – Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness returns to his job as Northern Ireland’s Education Minister
2003 – Less than a year after taking up the post as chief executive of Northern Ireland’s Policing Board, Bob McCann resigns for personal reasons.

May 31
1430 – Charges are made against Thomas Foster, Archdeacon of Glendalough, that he has sold the lands of the dignity, has kept concubines, has had offspring, is ignorant of letters and does not know the language of the country: if they are true, he is to be deprived on this date
1744 – Birth of Richard Lovell Edgeworth, inventor, educationist and politician
1798 – Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey is appointed as Commander of the insurgent forces In Wexford town, a civilian government led by four Protestants and four Catholics is established
1847 – Birth of Alice Stopford Green in Kells, Co. Meath. Irish historian and patriot; she is noted for proving the Irish had a rich culture before English rule. A strong supporter of the Treaty of 1921, she is nominated to the first Seanad in December 1922
1848 – At Grosse Ile, Canada, 40 immigrant vessels wait to unload. For more on this story, please click The Wild Geese
1889 – Helen Waddell, Irish scholar, translator and novelist, is born in Tokyo
1900 – During the Boer War, Piet de Wet captures the thirteenth battalion of the Imperial Yeomanry at Lindley. To British eyes, this mounted Battalion is the social and political show-piece of the new Volunteer Army; a company of Irish M.F.H.'s known as the Irish Hunt Contingent, including the Earl of Longford and Viscount Ennismore; two companies of Ulster Protestant Unionists, including the Earl of Leitrim, a whiskey Baronet (Sir John Power) and the future Lord Craigavon; and a company of English and Irish men-about-town raised by Lord Donoughmore, who had insisted on paying their own passage to South Africa. This patriotic band is commanded by a British regular, Lieutenant Colonel Basil Spragge. The surrender of Spragge's Irish Yeomanry is the cause of a ripple of mirth in nationalist circles in Ireland. In fact, there is a gallant Last Stand made by the Irish Hunt Company. Lord Longford, with blood streaming from wounds at the neck, face, and wrists, orders his men to fight to the end. "I knew it to be madness," said one of the gentlemen troopers, (son of the Irish Lord Chancellor) "and so did everyone else, I think, but not a man refused". In general, raw Irish Yeomen fought no worse than British regulars had fought in similar situations. A respectable total of 80 were killed or wounded before the White Flag went up. Piet de Wet's bag totalled about 530 men, including Spragge, Lord Longford (seriously wounded), Lords Ennismore, Leitrim, and Donoughmore (and the future Lord Craigavon), all captured, and the whiskey Baronet Power killed
1911 – The hull of the world’s most famous ship – the Titanic – is launched
1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary is established
1937 – Birth of Mary O'Rourke, Fianna Fáil politician
1941 – German bombs fall on North Strand, Dublin; 34 people are killed and 90 are injured
1962 – General Election is held in Northern Ireland; Unionists win 34 of the 51 seats
1970 – Death of Arkle, the greatest Irish steeplechaser of all time. Arkle had broken a pedal bone during a race in 1968. Stiffness caused by the injury becomes worse and in spite of his great courage, he can hardly stand. On this date, his vet, James Kavanagh, gives him his final injection; Arkle lies down in his box and goes to sleep forever
1998 – The Protestant community in a Wexford village receives an apology from Bishop Brendan Comiskey over a boycott more than 40 years ago. He asks for forgiveness for a controversial incident in Fethard-on-Sea when local Catholics boycott Protestant shops and classes over a six-month period during 1957
2000 – It is announced by the British Government that Tom Constantine, a former director of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration will oversee policing reforms in Northern Ireland
2002 – The people of North Kerry turn out in their thousands to pay their last respects to playwright John B. Keane.

 

This week in History

May 15
1395 – Richard II returns to England on this date, confident that Gaelic Irish power has been checked
1600 – Sent by Queen Elizabeth to quell the rumblings of discontent in Ulster, Sir Henry Docwra lands at Culmore with a force of 4000 foot and 200 horse soldiers; modern Derry is thereby founded
1621 – Sir Henry Docwra is created Baron Docwra of Culmore
1753 – Isaac Corry, opposition politician, Volunteer, and Chancellor of the Exchequer is born in Newry, Co. Down
1808 – Michael Balfe, operatic composer, is born in Dublin
1829 – Elected to the office of minister of Parliament for Co. Clare by recently enfranchised Catholics, O'Connell presents himself at the bar of the House of Commons, but is asked to withdraw for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy
1847 – Daniel O'Connell, "The Liberator," dies in Genoa. His body is returned to Ireland and buried in Glasnevin Cemetery
1867 – Eoin MacNeill, Gaelic scholar and co-founder of the Gaelic League, is born in Glenarm, Co. Antrim
1940 – Proinsias de Rossa, politician and leader of Democratic Left, is born in Dublin
2000 – Two international inspectors who have been tasked with examining IRA arms dumps as part of the plans for the restoration of devolved government to the North arrive in Ireland
2001 – Drivers enjoy a free ride across Dublin's two toll bridges – a bonus from the booth operators' strike over pay and working hours
May 16
587 – St. Brendan the Navigator, early transatlantic voyager, dies. In the liturgical calendar, today is St. Brendan's Feast Day
1920 – 'Soviets' are proclaimed in 13 Co. Limerick creameries, including Knocklong 1926 – Eamon de Valera founds Fianna Fáil and holds its first public meeting
1927 – 'A' Reserve established by Oglaigh na hÉireann – the Irish Defence Forces
1938 – The Department of Justice bans Photography magazine because of 'attention given to the female nude'
1945 – Eamon de Valera responds to Churchill's victory speech during which Churchill took one last jab at Irish neutrality. For Churchill's speech and De Valera's response, please click World at War
1997 – Tony Blair visits Northern Ireland and gives the go ahead for exploratory contacts between government officials and Sinn Féin
2000 – An Post officially launches a set of four 30p postage stamps in honour of flamboyant writer and wit, Oscar Wilde
2001 – Proposals to locate the first wind farm off the country's west coast are unveiled. The £100 million project is to be located off the north Kerry coast on the southern lip of the Shannon estuary and is to involve the construction of between 20 and 30 wind turbines
2001 – The United States designates the Real IRA, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, as a "foreign terrorist organisation," a legal term that brings financial and other sanctions. Under US law, any assets the Real IRA has in the United States are frozen, it is illegal to support the organization and Real IRA members are not eligible for US visas
May 17
1650 – Cromwell's army is defeated in the second assault on Clonmel, suffering its heaviest losses. The following day, the Mayor of Clonmel negotiates honourable terms for surrender with Cromwell, who did not realise that O'Neill and his soldiers had left the town. Annoyed at being outwitted, Cromwell nevertheless keeps to the terms
1855 – Birth in Bantry, Co. Cork of Timothy Michael Healy, one of the most brilliant and most controversial of Irish politicians. His career spans from Parnell's leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the 1880s to the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922; he becomes the Free State's first Governor-General
1880 – Charles Stewart Parnell is elected Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party
1917 – A new military viceroy, General French, acts on mistaken information that Sinn Féin is implicated in a pro-German plot and has most of the leaders arrested
1949 – The British Government recognizes the Republic of Ireland
1974 – Car bombs explode in Dublin and Monaghan, killing 34 people
May 18
1401 – John de Stanley is told that he is to be replaced as lieutenant by Thomas of Lancaster (duke of Clarence and second son of Henry IV), who is 12 or 13 years old. Lancaster's deputy, Sir Stephen le Scrope, will effectively govern Ireland for the next few years
1613 – James I's Irish parliament opens in Dublin
1825 – The House of Lords rejects the Catholic Emancipation Bill which would disenfranchise Irish forty-shilling free-holders and put clergy on state salaries
1798 – The 2nd Earl of Kingston is tried amid great pomp by the Irish House of Lords for the murder of Colonel Henry FitzGerald. An executioner stands beside Kingston with an immense axe, painted black except for two inches of polished steel, and held at the level of the defendant's neck. However, no witnesses appear for the prosecution, and Kingston is acquitted. The Directory of the United Irishmen had planned to use the occasion to kill the entire government and all the lords, but one vote cast against this scheme (by the informer Francis Magan) causes it to be abandoned
1896 – The City and Suburban Ground now known as Croke Park, hosts a soccer match for the first time. The teams are a combination of Irish and Scots women versus England. The combined team beats England 3-2
1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from prison; he goes to live in France, where he writes his famous poem, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"
1928 – Death of writer Standish O'Grady on the Isle of Wight. Under the influence of John O'Donovan, he studies the Old Irish myths and legends, and his works, which influence the Irish literary revival of the 1890's, popularise the Irish sagas
1939 – The first aircraft lands at the newly opened Rineanna Airfield which is later to become Shannon International Airport
1999 – The Church of Ireland's annual synod calls on the authorities at Drumcree to conditionally withdraw a long-standing invitation to the Orangemen to use their church ahead of the order's controversial annual march through nationalist parts of Portadown
2000 – Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble decides to accept the IRA’s offer to put arms beyond use and backs a return to the Stormont Executive with Sinn Féin
2006 – Michael O'Riordan dies in Dublin. A key figure in the Irish Communist Party, Mr O'Riordan was one of just two surviving Irish veterans of the Spanish Civil War. He was shot in Spain while with the 'Connolly Column', named after socialist leader James Connolly, which fought against General Franco's fascists from 1936-39.
Photo Credit: Communist Party of Ireland.
May 19
1660 – An Act by the British Parliament forbids the export of Irish wool
1798 – Lord Edward Fitzgerald, a leader of the United Irishmen, is betrayed by Francis Magan; he's arrested and is shot while being apprehended; he dies of his wounds on June 4
1821 – Anna Maria Odell, the second wife of William Odell (former MP for Co. Limerick), gives birth to a stillborn child in the Marshalsea debtors' prison, where she had accompanied her husband
1870 – Sir Isaac Butt invents the term "Home Rule". The first meeting of the "Home Government Association" (later to become the "Home Rule League") is held in a Dublin hotel. A resolution is passed "that the true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish Parliament with full control over our domestic affairs"
1998 – SDLP leader John Hume and his Unionist counterpart, David Trimble, join U2 on stage at a concert in Belfast's Waterfront Hall to drum up support for a massive Yes vote in Friday's referendum on the Stormont agreement
1998 – Abortion is opposed in all circumstances by 58% of people as against 24% in favour, according to a Pro Life Campaign opinion poll, carried out by Irish Marketing Surveys
1999 – A five-stone lump of butter, estimated to have been buried in a bog over 300 years ago, is discovered in the Poll na gCapaill bog near Barnaderg in Co. Galway by turf cutters Tom Burke and Vincent Roche
2000 – British Airways launches its first daily flight service to Glasgow from Cork

May 20
1311 – The war of the O'Briens of Thomond escalates as the Norman-Irish become involved on both sides: the de Burghs support Dermot O'Brien and Richard de Clare supports Donough O'Brien. There is a pitched battle at Bunratty on this date, with heavy losses on both sides; de Burgh and others are imprisoned
1648 – Truce between the confederates and Inchiquin; its adherents are excommunicated by Giovanni Rinuccini, papal nuncio to the confederates
1836 – An Act amalgamates the county constabulary and Peace Preservation Force into a centralized police force – the Irish Constabulary – which will later become the Royal Irish Constabulary
1922 – De Valera and Collins agree to a pact whereby a national coalition panel of candidates will represent the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of Sinn Féin throughout Ireland in the forthcoming general election
1927 – The opening hours of Irish public houses are restricted by the Intoxicating Liquor Act
1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland for Ireland on the anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's famous flight; she lands near Derry and becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Photo Credit: Associated Press File Photo/Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College 1969 – Students stage a sit-in at University College in Dublin to protest conditions in Northern Ireland
1998 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern assures unionists there is no hidden agenda in the Belfast Agreement and promises to stamp out dissident paramilitary groups who want to wreck the accord
2001 – More than half a million people line the streets to watch the postponed St Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin
2001 – Former US president Bill Clinton begins a four-day trip to Ireland with a round of golf at Ballybunion
2003 – The Irish Government restricts alcohol adverts. The ads are banned from buses, trains, cinemas and sporting events and not permitted before 10 p.m. on television
2003 – Thousands of Irish-based Celtic fans fly to Spain to cheer on the Glasgow club in their first European final in 33 years tomorrow

May 21
1639 – Lord Deputy Thomas Wentworth imposes the Black Oath of loyalty to Charles I on all Ulster Scots over the age of 16
1916 – Clocks and watches go forward one hour as the Daylight Saving Act (Summer Time) is introduced 1920 – James Plunkett, pseudonym of James Plunkett Kelly; novelist, is born in Dublin
1980 – Taoiseach Charles Haughey and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher meet in London (and later in Dublin on December 8th), and agree to consider 'the totality of relationships within these islands'
1981 – At 2:11 am, Raymond McCreesh dies on hunger strike in the Maze Prison. Later, the same day at 11:29 pm, he is joined in death by his friend and fellow hunger-striker, Patsy O'Hara. 2000 – Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams sparks a new political storm when he makes it clear he could not call on republicans and nationalists to join the North’s proposed new police service 2000 – Demonstrators picket Drogheda Heritage Centre as the death mask of Oliver Cromwell is put on display where he is reputed to have massacred thousands of defenceless civilians

 

This week in History

May 8
1567 – Shane O'Neill's army crosses the Swilly estuary at Farsetmore, and is defeated in a pitched battle by Hugh O'Donnell. Many drown while trying to escape; O'Neill loses1,300 men
1597 – Execution of Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne
1916 – Irish patriots, Michael Mallin, Eamonn Ceannt, Cornelius "Con" Colbert and Sean Heuston are executed in Kilmainham gaol
1945 – VE Day is marked in Dublin by small disturbances throughout the city which quickly turn into major disorder
2001 – A strike by more than 100 ATGWU drivers along the east coast causes havoc for 120,000 travellers who find themselves without suburban and inter-city train service; Dart service is cut in half

May 9
1650 – The Battle of Clonmel begins with the first of two assaults. Cromwell's forces are beaten back on this date by Black Hugh O'Neill. Eventually, Cromwell loses up to 2,000 men, but O'Neill, realizing he has a shortage of ammunition, secretly withdraws
1671 – Irish adventurer Colonel Thomas Blood dresses as a clergyman and attempts to steal the British crown jewels from the Tower of London. He is arrested in possession of the crown
1691 – Charles Chalmont (Marquis de Saint-Ruth; French general) is sent by Louis XIV to command the Irish army and arrives on this date
1709 – The Irish House of Lords expresses hope that union of Ireland and England will follow union of England and Scotland
1828 – Charles Kickham, Fenian, novelist, and author of Knocknagow, is born in Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary
1916 – Irish Patriot, Thomas Kent, is executed at Cork Detention Barracks
1932 – Éamon de Valera is elected Taoiseach
1982 – General Election results in Fianna Fáil victory winning 81 seats. Charles J. Haughey is elected as Taoiseach on the 50th Anniversary of the first Fianna Fáil Government in 1932.

May 10
1603 – In the revolt of the towns, or recusancy revolt, Catholic worship is re-established in Kilkenny and the main Munster towns between 11 April and this date, in the hope that James I will grant religious toleration; Mountjoy marches south and forces the towns to submit
1642 – A Catholic confederacy ('the Confederation of Kilkenny') is instituted to administer Catholic-controlled parts of the country pending a final settlement
1739 – John Thomas Troy, Catholic Archbishop of Dublin and opponent of revolution, is born in Castleknock, Co. Dublin
1804 – After resigning as Prime Minister following a disagreement with George III over Catholic Emancipation, William Pitt returns to office
1960 – Paul Hewson, better known as Bono, is born at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin
1972 – In a referendum in the Republic, 83 per cent favour accession to the European Economic Community
1998 – Members of Sinn Féin vote to accept the Good Friday peace agreement, effectively acknowledging the north-south border

May 11
1745 – At the battle of Fontenoy (30 April/11 May according to the two calendars), near Tournai in modern Belgium, the Irish Brigade of the French army under Lieutenant Charles O'Brien repulses the British and wins the day. Those killed include (on the British side) Henry Ponsonby, MP for Innistiogue and a brother of Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Earl of Bessborough
1788 – Presbyterian minister, Henry Cooke, is born at Grillagh, near Maghera, Co Derry. Cooke is famous for leading Ulster Presbyterianism away from the free-thinking radicalism which had spawned the United Irishmen's rising during his childhood
1916 – During the House of Commons debate on the Irish crises, John Dillon urges the cessation of executions
1937 – Debate on new Constitution commences
1967- The Republic of Ireland applies again to join the Common Market

May 12
563 – St Columcille establishes a community on Iona
1823 – Daniel O'Connell founds the Catholic Association, an organization dedicated to obtaining the franchise for Catholics
1916 – Irish Patriots, Seán MacDiarmada and James Connolly are executed at Kilmainham Gaol
1981 – Francis Hughes, Irish political prisoner, dies on hunger strike, in Maze Prison, near Lisburn, Co. Antrim. His death comes a week after the the death of Bobby Sands on 5 May, the first to die in a republican campaign for political status to be granted to IRA prisoners
1998 – British Chancellor Gordon Brown hands the Yes campaign in the North a monster financial boost when he unveils a bumper £315 million plan — over twice what was expected
1999 – US First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton become the first woman to be granted the Freedom of Galway city, following in the footsteps of her country's former presidents, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan
2003 – Dublin City Council votes by an overwhelming majority to call for the preservation of a house in Moore Street where the leaders of the 1916 Rising have their last meeting and decide to surrender to British forces.

May 13
1787 – On this date, which is a Sunday, Alderman Exshaw, accompanied by Archdeacon Hastings, is walking in Merrion Square, Dublin, when he encounters 'a great number of people, leaping, wrestling, shouting, etc.'. The archdeacon observes that this activity profanes the Sabbath and is a disgrace to Exshaw's district. The latter orders the police to advance and disperse the crowd with fixed bayonets. The MPs Richard Griffith, Henry Hatton and Sir John Freke intervene, and Griffith asks Exshaw 'to consider what he was about to do; that he had no right to order his men to fire without reading the Riot Act, and that if they fired, they must kill many innocent persons'. These words, according to Exshaw later, encourage the mob, and they immediately attack the police with stones. Exshaw will admit that there was no riot before he ordered the police to disperse the crowd, 'that some of his men were drunk, but not so much so, he said as to render them incapable of doing their duty; that it was with great difficulty he prevented them from firing on the mob'. Griffith will be found guilty of instigating a riot, and considered lucky not to be hanged
1848 – The Irish Confederation splits; John Mitchel starts the militant United Irishman; he is arrested on this date and is sentenced to 14 years transportation under the new Treason-Felony Act
1919 – Dan Breen and Seán Treacy rescue their comrade Seán Hogan from a Dublin-Cork train at Knocklong, Co. Limerick; two policemen guarding him are killed
1945 – In a radio broadcast, Churchill accuses de Valera's government of frolicking with the Germans and Japanese

1981 – Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt in St Peter's Square, Rome
1998 – Delegates at the Church of Ireland Synod in Dublin vote down a proposal that the church stop investing in companies involved in the production and selling of arms
1998 – Taoiseach Bertie Ahern calls on Sinn Féin and the IRA to state unequivocally that the war in Northern Ireland is over
1998 – The British Government appoints Adam Ingram as "Minister for Victims" to co-ordinate a drive towards new proposals to help the forgotten victims of terrorist violence in Northern Ireland
2000 – More than 3,500 people march through the centre of Dublin to show their opposition to the rising levels of racism directed at refugees

May 14
1660 – Charles II is proclaimed king in Dublin, six days after London, thus ending Cromwell's reign as Lord Protector and beginning a brief and limited Catholic Restoration
1784 – Foster's Corn Law regulates the corn trade
1974 – The Ulster Workers' Council declares a general strike; Faulkner and the unionist members of the executive resign on 28 May; direct rule is reimposed the following day and the strike is called off. Power-sharing is dead
1998 – The leaders of the five main Dáil parties join forces in urging Sinn Féin and the IRA to publicly declare that the "war is over" and that weapons are redundant

 

This week in History

January 15
1821 – Thomas Clarke Luby, Fenian, is born in Dublin
1939 – IRA Army Council and Republican survivors of 2nd Dáil Éireann declare war on England
1920 – Sinn Féin takes control of most borough and urban councils in local elections
1988 – Sean McBride, Irish patriot and human rights activist, dies.

January 16
1822 – Thomas Clark Luby, co-founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, is born
1904 – In reaction to attacks on Jews in Limerick, Michael Davitt, a leader of the Irish Land League, protests “as an Irishman and a Catholic against this spirit of barbarous malignity”
1913 – Home Rule bill passes in the House of Commons
1922 – Michael Collins takes over control of Dublin Castle from the British authorities on behalf of the new Irish state
1935 – Gobnaitt NiBhruadair (Albinia Broderick), Irish republican activist, dies
1981 – Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey, is shot by gunmen who burst into her home at Coalisland in County Tyrone
2002 – Richard Haass, US President George Bush’s special adviser on Northern Ireland, urges Sinn Féin to drop its objections to the new Police Board

January 17
1649 – Marquis of Ormond James Butler and the confederates sign a peace treaty which grants toleration for Catholics in exchange for troops
1860 – Birth in Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, of Douglas Hyde, playwright, folklorist, founder of The Gaelic League and the first president of Éire
1964 – The Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) is formed. It is the forerunner of the civil rights movement and begins a programme of publicising what it sees as widespread discrimination, in a number of areas of life, against Catholics in Northern Ireland
1992 – Seven Protestant constructions workers at a security base in Co. Tyrone are killed by an IRA bomb. The driver of their bus also dies

January 18
1671 – Catholic gentry present petition to Charles II
1831 – Daniel O’Connell is convicted of conspiracy
1913 – The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union strike ends
1998 – The fourth revenge killing of a Catholic by LVF murder squads since ruthless warlord Billy Wright was gunned down, is committed in Maghera, Co. Derry
2001 – The right of Travellers to pursue their traditional lifestyle on their own land was yesterday rejected by the European Court of Human Rights

January 19
1920 – IRA attacks Drombrane barracks, Co. Tipperary
1998 – The Northern peace process are close to collapse after a 52-year-old Catholic taxi driver is killed in an attack which bears all the hallmarks of the UDA/UFF

January 20
1841 – James Armour, Presbyterian minister and political activist is born in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim
1902 – Kevin Barry, medical student and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Dublin
1902 – In the House of Commons, John Redmond criticizes the use of concentration camps by the British in South Africa
1916 – Secret negotiations result in alliance of the Irish Citizen Army with the Irish Republican Brotherhood
1973 – Whiskey In The Jar by Thin Lizzy enters the British charts
1998 – Hope remain high that the IRA ceasefire will hold despite escalating violence in the North and Sinn Féin’s implacable opposition to the Anglo-Irish blueprint
1999 – The Loyalist Volunteer Force announces plans for a second round of arms decommissioning which could include the handover of explosives
2000 – According to a major international survey, Ireland is one of the least corrupt countries in the industrial world
2002 – Rioting erupts on the streets of north Belfast as angry mobs throw petrol bombs and blast bombs at police.

January 21
1876 – James Larkin, organizer of Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union and socialist politician, is born in Liverpool
1919- Daíl Éireann, chaired by Sean T. O’Kelly meets for the very first time at Mansion House in Dublin
1919 – Two members of Royal Irish Constabulary are shot dead by Irish Volunteers including Seán Treacy and Dan Breen in an ambush at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary: this is regarded as the first incident in the ‘War of Independence’ (Anglo-Irish War). Attacks on policemen continue for the rest of the year
1998 – A controversial deal is agreed by the British and Irish governments to transfer the IRA gang which carried out the Guildford and Woolwich bombings to Portlaoise prison
1998 – The North is plunged into a new crisis after Benedict Hughes, a Catholic, is shot dead in south Belfast in the latest murder aimed at wrecking the peace process
1998 – The IRA dramatically rejects the Anglo-Irish Stormont settlement plan
2002 – Sinn Féin MPs will never sit in the British parliament, Gerry Adams vows as they move into Commons offices for the first time. Party policy is also changed to allow MPs to sit in the Dáil.

 

This Week In History

January 15
1800 – The last session of the Irish parliament begins on this date
1821 – Thomas Clarke Luby, Fenian, is born in Dublin
1861 – Young Irelander Terence MacManus dies in San Francisco, CA
1939 – IRA Army Council and Republican survivors of 2nd Dáil Éireann declare war on England
1920 – Sinn Féin takes control of most borough and urban councils in local elections
1988 – Sean McBride, Irish patriot and human rights activist, dies.

January 16
1822 – Thomas Clark Luby, co-founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, is born
1904 – In reaction to attacks on Jews in Limerick, Michael Davitt, a leader of the Irish Land League, protests “as an Irishman and a Catholic against this spirit of barbarous malignity”
1913 – Home Rule bill passes in the House of Commons
1922 – Michael Collins takes over control of Dublin Castle from the British authorities on behalf of the new Irish state
1935 – Gobnaitt NiBhruadair (Albinia Broderick), Irish republican activist, dies
1981 – Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey, is shot by gunmen who burst into her home at Coalisland in County Tyrone

January 17
1649 – Marquis of Ormond James Butler and the confederates sign a peace treaty which grants toleration for Catholics in exchange for troops
1860 – Birth in Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, of Douglas Hyde, playwright, folklorist, founder of The Gaelic League and the first president of Éire
1964 – The Campaign for Social Justice (CSJ) is formed. It is the forerunner of the civil rights movement and begins a programme of publicising what it sees as widespread discrimination, in a number of areas of life, against Catholics in Northern Ireland
1992 – Seven Protestant constructions workers at a security base in Co. Tyrone are killed by an IRA bomb. The driver of their bus also dies

2000 – A pair of King Billy’s gloves, worn during the battle of the Boyne, and the dress worn by Sinéad de Valera at the second inauguration ceremony of her husband, President Éamon de Valera, are unlikely companions in The Way We Wore, a permanent exhibition of the clothing and jewellery worn by Irish people from the1760s to the 1960s which opens at the National Museum, Collins Barracks.

January 18
1667 – Cattle exports to England are prohibited
1831 – Daniel O’Connell is convicted of conspiracy
1913 – The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union strike ends
1934 – Joseph Devlin, Irish nationalist dies
1937 – Birth of John Hume, nationalist politician, in Derry/Londonderry
2001 – The right of Travellers to pursue their traditional lifestyle on their own land was yesterday rejected by the European Court of Human Rights
2002 – Political history is made today as the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats coalition becomes the longest-serving government in the State. After taking office on June 26, 1997, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s minority government is serving its 1,666th day in office.

January 19
1920 – IRA attacks Drombrane barracks, Co. Tipperary
1983 – The Minister for Justice, Michael Noonan, reveals that the previous Fianna Fáil administration was involved in tapping the phones of Journalists Geraldine Kennedy and Bruce Arnold
1998 – The Northern peace process is close to collapse after a 52-year-old Catholic taxi driver is killed in an attack which bears all the hallmarks of the UDA/UFF

January 20
1621 – Patents are granted for plantations in parts of Leitrim, King’s County, Queen’s County and Westmeath
1841 – James Armour, Presbyterian minister and political activist is born in Ballymoney, Co. Antrim
1902 – Kevin Barry, medical student and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Dublin
1902 – In the House of Commons, John Redmond criticizes the use of concentration camps by the British in South Africa
1916 – Secret negotiations result in alliance of the Irish Citizen Army with the Irish Republican Brotherhood
1961 – John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as president of the United States of America, becoming the first Irish Catholic to be elected to that office
1973 – Whiskey In The Jar by Thin Lizzy enters the British charts
1998 – Hope remain high that the IRA ceasefire will hold despite escalating violence in the North and Sinn Féin’s implacable opposition to the Anglo-Irish blueprint
1999 – The Loyalist Volunteer Force announces plans for a second round of arms decommissioning which could include the handover of explosives
2000 – According to a major international survey, Ireland is one of the least corrupt countries in the industrial world
2002 – Rioting erupts on the streets of north Belfast as angry mobs throw petrol bombs and blast bombs at police.

January 21
1793 – Louis XVI is executed in Paris; he is attended by an Irish priest, Fr. Edgeworth. Lord Edward FitzGerald is the only member of the Irish parliament not to appear in mourning following the execution
1876 – James Larkin, organizer of Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union and socialist politician, is born in Liverpool
1919- Daíl Éireann, chaired by Sean T. O’Kelly meets for the very first time at Mansion House in Dublin
1919 – Two members of Royal Irish Constabulary are shot dead by Irish Volunteers including Seán Treacy and Dan Breen in an ambush at Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary: this is regarded as the first incident in the ‘War of Independence’ (Anglo-Irish War). Attacks on policemen continue for the rest of the year
1998 – A controversial deal is agreed by the British and Irish governments to transfer the IRA gang which carried out the Guildford and Woolwich bombings to Portlaoise prison
1998 – The North is plunged into a new crisis after Benedict Hughes, a Catholic, is shot dead in south Belfast in the latest murder aimed at wrecking the peace process
1998 – The IRA dramatically rejects the Anglo-Irish Stormont settlement plan
2002 – Sinn Féin MPs will never sit in the British parliament, Gerry Adams vows as they move into Commons offices for the first time. Party policy is also changed to allow MPs to sit in the Dáil.

 

This week in History

January 8
1871 – James Craig, Ist Viscount Craigavon, Unionist politician and PM of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1940, is born in Belfast
1873 – Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain is founded
1916 – Evacuation of Gallipoli Peninsula in the Dardanelles is completed; there are100,000 casualties, mostly Australian, New Zealanders and Irish, in the eight-month campaign
1922 – Arthur Griffin is elected second president of Ireland by Dáil Éireann
1998 – The first licensed drug to treat mild to moderately severe Alzheimer’s disease is launched in Ireland
1999 – The British Government comes under pressure to stop the early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland after an upsurge in paramilitary shootings and beatings
2002 – Former Soviet leader Gorbachev sinks a pint of Guinness with Dublin Lord Mayor Michael Mulcahy in the famous Doheny and Nesbitt pub in Baggot Street.
2007 – Northern ireland’s Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine dies at age 53 after suffering a heart attack and later a stroke and a brain haemorrhage. A former UVF prisoner and a key figure in brokering the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire of 1994, a party statement is quoted as saying: “Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son.”

January 9
1642 – 30 Catholics are killed by the Scottish garrison and English settlers at Island Magee, Co. Antrim
1922 – Arthur Griffith is elected Taoiseach of Dáil Éireann after Eamon de Valera steps down
1952 – Birth of Danny Morrison, former publicity officer for Sinn Féin, and now a novelist
1962 – Birth of Ray Houghton, footballer
1998 – Mo Mowlam, risks her political future in talks with loyalist paramilitaries inside the Maze prison in a desperate bid to save the troubled Northern Ireland peace process
2002 – Former soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, accepts the honour of being named the 71st Freeman of Dublin, following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela and members of U2
2002 – Police are attacked with bricks and bombs by rioters from both sides of the sectarian divide, as bigotry and violence flare again at the Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, north Belfast.

January 10
1922 – Arthur Griffith elected President of Irish Free State
1969 – Civil rights leaders in Northern Ireland defying police orders and refuse to abandon their planned march through Newry in Co. Down
2003 – Feared loyalist paramilitary chief Johnny Mad Dog Adair is arrested and sent back to jail. Adair will not now be released from prison until January 2005

January 11
1921 – The British government announces that any unauthorised person found in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives is liable to be executed
1970 – IRA splits into Officials and Provisionals (Provos)
1999 – The Democratic Unionist Party warns that it would mount a legal challenge if Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam moves to announce a power-sharing Executive without the Assembly approving the new government structures

January 12
1885 – Thomas Ashe, patriot and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Lispole, Co. Kerry
1998 – Political master strokes by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair breath new life into the Northern peace process with a blueprint for peace which could replace the Anglo-Irish Agreement with a three-stranded government for the North

January 13
1800 – Daniel O’Connell makes his first public speech, opposing Union with England
1998 – Northern Ireland takes another giant step towards peace after the political parties at Stormont accept the British and Irish governments blueprint as the basis for negotiation
2001 – One and a half copies of the most important piece of documentation of the 20th century in Ireland, the Declaration of Independence, is sold to a New York collector for £56,000

January 14
1937 – De Valera’s new constitution, with its assertions of Ireland as a sovereign 32-county state, and its definition of Catholic morality and “women’s place” is approved
2000 – Unionist politicians are furious after Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams claims that there could be a united Ireland by the year 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising

 

This Week In History

January 8
1999 – The British Government comes under pressure to stop the early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland after an upsurge in paramilitary shootings and beatings
2001 – All schools are to receive a CD ROM of one of the masterpieces of Western art — the Book of Kells. On behalf of the schools, the Minister for Education and Science, Dr Michael Woods, accepts the CD ROMs from Trinity College Library in Dublin and leading internet company, X Communications
2002 – Former Soviet leader Gorbachev sinks a pint of Guinness with Dublin Lord Mayor Michael Mulcahy in the famous Doheny and Nesbitt pub in Baggot Street.
2007 – Northern ireland’s Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine dies at age 53 after suffering a heart attack and later a stroke and a brain haemorrhage. A former UVF prisoner and a key figure in brokering the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire of 1994, a party statement is quoted as saying: “Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son.”

January 9
1642 – 30 Catholics are killed by the Scottish garrison and English settlers at Island Magee, Co. Antrim
1922 – Arthur Griffith is elected Taoiseach of Dáil Éireann after Eamon de Valera steps down
1952 – Birth of Danny Morrison, former publicity officer for Sinn Féin, and now a novelist
1998 – Mo Mowlam, risks her political future in talks with loyalist paramilitaries inside the Maze prison in a desperate bid to save the troubled Northern Ireland peace process
2002 – Former soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, accepts the honour of being named the 71st Freeman of Dublin, following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela and members of U2
2002 – Police are attacked with bricks and bombs by rioters from both sides of the sectarian divide, as bigotry and violence flare again at the Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, north Belfast.

January 10
1751 – Cornelius Bolton, politician, Volunteer and improving landlord is born
1922 – Arthur Griffith elected President of Irish Free State
1969 – Civil rights leaders in Northern Ireland defying police orders and refuse to abandon their planned march through Newry in Co. Down
2003 – Feared loyalist paramilitary chief Johnny Mad Dog Adair is arrested and sent back to jail. Adair will not now be released from prison until January 2005

January 11
1921 – The British government announces that any unauthorised person found in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives is liable to be executed
1970 – IRA splits into Officials and Provisionals (Provos)
1998 – The Government plays down reports of a rift between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
1999 – The Democratic Unionist Party warns that it would mount a legal challenge if Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam moves to announce a power-sharing Executive without the Assembly approving the new government structures

January 12
1765 – The Kinsale by-election caused by the death of John Folliott on this date is contested by Agmondisham Vesey and Richard Meade. Vesey wins by 64 votes to 48, but pays a price for being elected: William Dennis, vintner, receives £80 for Mr Vesey’s entertainment. Three other innkeepers receive a total of £76 3s 6d for providing ‘drink for Mr Vesey’s health’ and a further £14 9s for beer to the populace. His election agent, James Dennis, spends £46 12s 2d to send a coach and post-chaise to Dublin to collect voters. Vesey spends a further £12 7s 10d on ‘a notice to disqualify John O’Grady as a Papist from voting’. Ben Hayes, fiddler, is paid £5 13s 9d. Vesey’s election breakages bill amounts to £7 8s, exclusive of fines for ‘a crowd of broke heads and crakt limbs’. James Kearney (a future MP for Kinsale) spends £16 4s 3d to bring voters to Kinsale on Vesey’s behalf: this includes a post-chaise and hospitality on the four-day journey
1885 – Thomas Ashe, patriot and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Lispole, Co. Kerry
1993 – A Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition government is formed, with Reynolds as Taoiseach
1998 – Political master strokes by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair breath new life into the Northern peace process with a blueprint for peace which could replace the Anglo-Irish Agreement with a three-stranded government for the North

January 13
1931 – Mary Clarke, Maryknoll nun and martyr is born of Irish parents in NYC
1998 – Northern Ireland takes another giant step towards peace after the political parties at Stormont accept the British and Irish governments blueprint as the basis for negotiation
2001 – One and a half copies of the most important piece of documentation of the 20th century in Ireland, the Declaration of Independence, is sold to a New York collector for £56,000
2003 – It is announced that the Government is to undertake a major review of Gaeltacht areas amid concerns of a dramatic fall-off in Irish language use in many areas.

January 14
1937 – De Valera’s new constitution, with its assertions of Ireland as a sovereign 32-county state, and its definition of Catholic morality and “women’s place” is approved
1965 – Talks between Seán Lemass, Taoiseach, and Terence O’Neill, Northern Ireland Prime Minister, take place in Belfast
2000 – Unionist politicians are furious after Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams claims that there could be a united Ireland by the year 2016, the centenary of the Easter Rising.