#OTD in 1967 – A local parish priest voiced his extreme opposition to the appearance of Jayne Mansfield at the Mount Brandon Hotel in Tralee, and the concert was duly cancelled. Two months later, she was killed in a car accident.

23/04/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

Jayne Mansfield landed in Ireland after her screen career had been on the slide for some time when she signed up for a one-night stand in the Mount Brandon Hotel. She was to be paid the princely sum of £1,000 for 35 minutes of cabaret. The booking immediately divided the council, with Councillor Michael O’Regan […]

#OTD in 1916 – Approximately 1,000 copies of The Proclamation of the Irish Republic are printed in Liberty Hall in a print office set up by James Connolly.

23/04/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The proclamation would be read by Pádraig Pearse outside the General Post Office on Sackville Street (now called O’Connell Street) on Monday 24th April. The proclamation was printed secretly on an old and poorly maintained Wharfedale Stop Cylinder Press in the printing office that had been set up by James Connolly in the basement in […]

#OTD in 1014 – Battle of Clontarf: The Dublin Norse and the king of Leinster, with Viking allies from overseas, are defeated by Brian Boru’s army at Clontarf.

23/04/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

The bounds between Irish Legend and Irish Myth has often been blurred, especially as the retelling of heroic deeds has been passed on through generations. Brian Boru was no legend although his life deeds were legendary. He was very much a real man and was in fact the last great High King of Ireland and […]

#OTD in Irish History – 23 April:

23/04/2018.Reading time 14 minutes.

1014 – Battle of Clontarf: The Dublin Norse and the king of Leinster, with Viking allies from overseas, are defeated by Brian Boru’s army at Clontarf. Brian, now an old man, is killed. This thwarts the potential domination of Ireland by the Norse, but they are well established in the coastal towns, and will continue […]

#OTD in 1969 – Bernadette Devlin, a newly elected MP, made a controversial maiden speech in the House of Commons.

22/04/2018.Reading time 24 minutes.

I understand that in making my maiden speech on the day of my arrival in Parliament and in making it on a controversial issue I flaunt the unwritten traditions of the House, but I think that the situation of my people merits the flaunting of such traditions. I remind the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. […]

#OTD in 1916 – Eoin MacNeill’s last minute bid to call off the Easter Rising.

22/04/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

The letter penned on Easter Saturday, 22 April 1916, by Irish Volunteers chief Eoin MacNeill, dispatched to rebel leaders in an effort to call off the planned revolution. “Volunteers completely deceived. All orders for to-morrow Sunday are entirely cancelled,” says the note signed by MacNeill on what is now a tatty piece of paper, embossed […]

#OTD in 1875 – Birth of Michael Joseph O’Rahilly in Ballylongford, Co Kerry.

22/04/2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

Michael Joseph O’Rahilly was born in Ballylongford, Co Kerry in 1875. He was a republican and a language enthusiast, a member of An Coiste Gnótha, the Gaelic League’s governing body. He was well-travelled, spending at least a decade in the United States and in Europe. He was a reasonably wealthy man; the Weekly Irish Times […]

#OTD in Irish History – 22 April:

22/04/2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

1365 – Lionel returns to England, leaving Ormond as his deputy. 1671 – An English Navigation Act prohibits direct importation of sugar, tobacco and other produce from the colonies to Ireland; act expires in 1681 but is renewed in 1685 and extended in 1696. 1717 – John Marshall, a successful attorney and father of Robert […]

#OTD in 1994 – Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Hutton, quashed the conviction of Paul Hill for the murder of a former British soldier in 1974. Hutton declared that the conviction was ‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’.

21/04/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

An appeals court overturned a 19-year-old murder conviction against Paul Hill, who spent nearly 15 years in prison for two IRA attacks that he insisted he never committed. The decision was the latest rebuke to the British police for mishandling high-profile terrorist cases in which innocent people have gone to jail. The court ruled that […]

#OTD in 1916 – Sir Roger Casement arrived in Tralee Bay, Co Kerry on board a German U-boat.

21/04/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

From 1915 Kerry was central to plans for the Rising. In autumn of that year Austin Stack, the leader of the Volunteers in Kerry and a member of the IRB was informed by Pádraig Pearse of the plans for the Rising. Arrangements were being made for an arms shipment from Germany to arrive in Tralee […]