1652 – Oliver Cromwell published a declaration that Irish Wolf Dogs or Irish Wolfhounds were prohibited to be exported and insisted that locals continue to breed sufficient numbers of the mighty hounds to hunt wolves.
1653 – The last major body of Irish Catholic troops under Phillip O’Reilly surrender to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland at Cloughoughter in Cavan. End of the Irish Confederate Wars (begun 1641).
1696 – Act ‘for encouraging the linen manufacture of Ireland’: Irish linen gains duty-free access to the British market on this date.
1718 – Birth of surveyor, lawyer, and a pioneer of early Virginia, Thomas Lewis, in Co Donegal. He was a signatory to the Fairfax Resolves preceding the American War for Independence, and after the conflict, contributed to the settlement of western Virginia in an area that would one day become part of West Virginia. He was a founding trustee of Liberty Hall (later Washington and Lee University), when it was made into a college in 1776.
1739 – Lord Barry of Santry was tried by his peers in the parliament house for the murder of his former servant Laughlin Murphy in August 1738. They unanimously found him guilty, but recommended him to the royal mercy. The Lord Lieutenant endorsed this plea, and Santry was pardoned under the great seal on 17 June. His estates, which had been forfeited for life, would be restored in 1741.
1827 – Birth of naturalist and astronomer, Mary King Ward, in Co Offaly. Mary was a keen stargazer, like her cousin William Parsons. He built the Leviathan of Parsonstown, a reflecting telescope with a six-foot mirror which remained the world’s largest until 1917. She was killed when she fell under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins. As the event occurred in 1869, she was the world’s first person known to be killed by a motor vehicle.
1880 – The Royal University of Ireland was founded by charter.
1876 – Birth of athlete, Cornelius ‘Con’ Leahy, who won Olympic medals at the 1906 and 1908 Games. Leahy was born in Cregane, on the border between Co Limerick and Co Cork. In 1906, Leahy, Peter O’Connor and John Daly, were entered for the Olympic Games in Athens by the Irish Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA) and Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), representing Ireland.
1887 – Birth of Harry Boland in Phibsborough, Dublin. He was a republican politician and member of the First Dáil. He joined the IRB at the same time as his older brother Gerry in 1904. Boland later joined the Irish Volunteers along with Gerry and his younger brother Ned and took an active part in the Easter Rising of 1916. During the Irish War of Independence, Boland operated alongside Michael Collins, who was a close friend. When Michael Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Boland sided with the anti-Treaty faction. Boland was killed when his hotel room was stormed by soldiers and he was fatally wounded.
1891 – The first ever Irish musical comedy, The Irish Girl, written by Percy French and Dr. W. Houston Collisson, was staged at the Queen’s Theatre, Dublin.
1893 – Death of politician, John Ballance. Born in Glenavy, Co Antrim, he emigrated to New Zealand and became the 14th Premier of New Zealand, from 1891 to 1893, the founder of the Liberal Party (the country’s first organised political party), and a Georgist. He supported votes for women and land reform, though at considerable cost to Māori.
1904 – Cecil Day-Lewis, poet, novelist, critic, and Ireland’s poet laureate from 1968 to 1972, was born in Stradbally, Co Laois.
1916 – Easter Rising Dublin – Day 4.
1920 – Georgina Frost won a legal battle to allow her to be clerk of the petty sessions for Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare; she was thus the first woman to hold public office from central government in the UK.
1920 – IRA captured and then destroyed the RIC barracks at Ballylanders, Co Limerick. The IRA also seized arms and ammunition. In reprisal, Black and Tans went on the rampage in Limerick city.
1923 – Éamon de Valera announces end of operations against the Irish Free State, effectively ending the Irish Civil War.
1929 – Death of revolutionary and politician, Austin Stack, in Dublin. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
1937 – Birth of Robert Eames in Belfast. He is an Anglican bishop who served as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 1986 to 2006.
1953 – Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress Maude Gonne MacBride died in Roebuck, Clonskeagh, and was later buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
1966 – Farmers protested against low milk prices; twenty-eight were arrested in Dublin.
1968 – The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) held a rally to protest the banning of a Republican Easter parade.
1970 – Death of stage and film actor, Arthur Shields. Born into a Protestant family in Portobello, Dublin, he started acting in the Abbey Theatre while still a young man. He was the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Barry Fitzgerald. An Irish nationalist, he fought in the 1916 Easter Rising. He was captured and interned in the Frongoch internment camp. He afterwards returned to the Abbey Theatre. In 1936, John Ford brought him to the United States to act in a film version of The Plough and the Stars. He later returned to the U.S. and for health reasons, decided to reside in California. He died at his home in Santa Barbara, California, aged 74.
1975 – Three Catholic civilians were shot dead by the Protestant Action Force (PAF), which was a covername used by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), during an attack on a social club, Bleary, near Lurgan, Co Down.
1983 – Fianna Fáil, in opposition in the Dáil, managed to have an anti-abortion amendment to the Irish constitution carried by 87 votes to 13. The amendment was the subject of a referendum on 8 September 1983.
1989 – Bob Cooper was appointed to head the new Fair Employment Commission (FEC).
1989 – The Northern Ireland Office refused to provide compensation to President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, for injuries received when he was shot and wounded by Loyalist gunmen in 1984.
1990 – The convictions of the ‘Winchester Three’ were overturned by the Court of Appeal in England. The three people had been sentenced for conspiring to murder Tom King, a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Upon their release the three people were arrested and deported from Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism legislation.
1992 – There was an announcement at the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (AIIC) that there would be a three-month suspension of its meetings to allow the political talks (later known as the Brooke/Mayhew talks) to recommence. Differences, however, emerged between the British and Irish governments with Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew, and Irish Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, publicly disagreeing as to whether, amongst other things, the Government of Ireland Act was open for discussion.
1993 – Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), James Molyneaux, stated that he would not enter new political talks while the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) was in talks with Sinn Féin (SF).
1995 – The RUC warned that Loyalist paramilitaries had moved into the drugs trade. Loyalist leaders warned their members about drug dealing on 11 May 1995.
1997 – The RUC prevented an Orange march from walking through the Nationalist lower Ormeau Road area of Belfast. The Orangemen staged a protest for several hours at the police line.
1997 – Leader of Fianna Fáil, Bertie Ahern, criticised Taoiseach, John Bruton, for his handling of the peace process.
1998 – Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, forecasts an end to the RUC in its present form. His prediction comes following a 55-minute review with Tony Blair in Downing Street of critical issues arising from the Good Friday settlement.
1999 – Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Marjorie (Mo) Mowlam, travelled to Dublin to sign a new British-Irish agreement which dealt with the issue of the recovery of the bodies of the ‘disappeared’. The agreement established a three-member commission to receive information about the burial sites of the victims of paramilitary killings.
1999 – Legal history is made when the country’s first ever convicted gangland murderer, self-confessed drugs dealer and gang boss Joseph Delaney, is jailed for life.
2001 – Ireland’s foremost literary town officially opens a permanent home for its famous wordsmiths and their works. A 19th century Georgian house, in the heart of Listowel, has become the Kerry Literary and Cultural Centre, where life-size models and audio-visual presentations help portray the personalities and output of various writers. The £1.5 million centre is appropriately named Seanchaí after the art of storytelling and in recognition of the folklore and traditions that inspire great literature.
2013 – Death of amateur boxer, Tony Byrne ‘Socks Byrne’. Byrne won a bronze medal for Ireland at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, in the lightweight division. Born in Drogheda, a fundraising campaign under the banner of “Send Byrne to Melbourne” was created to send him on his quest for glory down under. Byrne carried the flag for Ireland at the opening ceremony and was the captain of the Irish boxing team. He beat opponents from Czechoslovakia and the USA before losing in the semifinal on a split decision to Harry Kurschat of Germany. A few months later, he showed what might have been when he beat the eventual Gold Medallist, Dick McTaggart, in an Ireland-England International at the Royal Albert Hall.
Image | Lahinch, Co Clare
#irishhistory #ireland #irelandinspires #EasterRising
You must be logged in to post a comment.