1295 – Richard de Burgh is released by the council in parliament at Kilkenny.

1672 – Sir Richard Steele (baptised on this dated, birthdate unknown) in Dublin. He was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator.

1685 – George Berkeley, philosopher, physicist, mathematician, Dean of Derry and Bishop of Cloyne, is born in Dysart Castle, Co Kilkenny. The university town of Berkeley in California is named in his honor.

1689 – The Williamite War in Ireland begins (ends 3 October 1691).

1832 – Birth of Captain Charles Boycott, despised English estate manager in Ireland, from whose name the word ‘boycott’ is taken.

1860 – Birth of Michael O’Hickey in Carrickbeg, Co Waterford. He was a son of a Fenian, an Irish Catholic priest and professor of Irish at Maynooth College and an Irish language campaigner.

1873 – Prime Minister Gladstone’s Irish University Bill is defeated. He wanted to expand Trinity College in Dublin to incorporate several universities around Ireland.

1875 – After being barred as an undischarged felon from taking his seat as elected MP for Tipperary, John Mitchel is re-elected on this date. He dies eight days later.

1798 – Having been betrayed by Thomas Reynolds, the Leinster Directory of United Irishmen leaders is arrested.

1860 – Michael O’Hickey, professor of Irish and Irish-language campaigner, is born in Carrickbeg, Co Waterford.

1921 – A firefight took place between the Kilkenny IRA unit and British forces at Garrykerin House on the Clonmel-Kilkenny road. One Black and Tan constable was killed.

1923 – Five Republican prisoners (this time from IRA Kerry no. 3 Brigade) are killed at Cahersiveen, Kerry. They are taken from a National Army post in the town at gunpoint by Dublin Guard officers, under protest from the garrison. The prisoners are then shot in the legs to prevent escape and then blown up by a landmine by National Army troops.

1923 – One anti-Treaty fighter and one Free State soldier are killed in a gun battle after an attack on a Free State post at Rooskey, Co Roscommon.

1930 – Pat Taaffe, jockey and trainer, is born in Rathcoole, Co Dublin.

1944 – Britain bans all travel to and from Ireland in an effort to prevent news of Allied preparations for the invasion of France reaching the Germans.

1950 – Birth of William Patrick Duggan. He is a former rugby player. He won 41 Irish Caps, the first in 1975 and finished his international career in 1984 as captain. He toured New Zealand in 1977 with the British and Irish Lions, and at the time played club rugby for Blackrock College RFC. Willie was widely regarded as one of the hard men of world rugby at the time, despite not enjoying training and being a heavy smoker. Willie lives and works in Kilkenny, where he runs the lighting shop that he took over from his father (Willie Duggan Lighting Ltd.), but is still a huge supporter of the game and is one of the most revered and loved rugby players in the history of the Irish game.

1974 – Senator Billy Fox was shot dead. Senator Fox interrupted raiders on a visit to his girlfriend’s family home in Co. Monaghan when he was shot dead. His girlfriend, Marjorie Coulson and her family were then ordered by the raiders to leave the farmhouse and the house was set on fire. Five members of the Provisional IRA were later convicted of involvement in his murder.

1981 – Bobby Sands recorded his diary for the first seventeen days of his hunger strike in which he detailed his thoughts and feelings on the momentous task that lay ahead of him. In order to secure his status as Irish political prisoner he was willing to fast til death, an event that would earn him a place in the annals of Irish history and in the hearts and minds of Irish republicans world wide. See Bobby Sands Trust for today’s entry: http://www.bobbysandstrust.com/writings/prison-diary

1992 – Birth of Cian Thomas Bolger in Celbridge, Co Kildare. He is a professional footballer who plays as a defender for Southend United and was Leicester City’s academy Player of the Year in 2009.

2000 – National Tree Week ends with a mass planting of 5,000 trees at Corkagh Park in Clondalkin.

2001 – Department of Agriculture vets are investigating another suspected case of foot and mouth in the North. Tests are carried out on a sheep taken from a farm in Augher to an abattoir in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, for slaughter.

Image | Winter Roads of Errigal, Mount Errigal, Co Donegal, Hibernia Landscapes by Stephen Wallace

#irishhistory #ireland #irelandinspires