Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
It’s said that the blood that flows in all of us; every one of us in the country is blood that came from across the sea. Our identity is best understood from a maritime perspective. For centuries, Ireland has been a haven for explorers, settlers, colonialists, navigators, pirates and traders absorbing goods and people from […]
Read More
Dame Alice Kyteler was born at Kyteler’s House, Kilkenny in 1280 to wealthy Norman parents. Forty-four years later, in 1324, she fled to England to escape being burned as a witch and in July of that year, her property, including Kytelers Inn was confiscated. In the intervening years Dame Alice had married four times, had […]
Read More
During the Irish War of Independence, Ned Broy was a double agent within the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), with the rank of Detective Sergeant. He worked as a clerk inside G Division, the intelligence branch of the DMP. While there he copied sensitive files for Michael Collins. On 7 April 1919, Broy smuggled Collins into […]
Read More
1761 – Birth of Henry Welbore Agar (Ellis), 2nd Viscount Clifden, perhaps the only person to sit consecutively in four different Houses of Parliament – the two in Ireland and the two in England. 1856 – Alfred Godley, classical scholar and writer, is born in Ashfield, Co Cavan. 1879 – Death of Nevill Coghill. Born […]
Read More
Born in Co Wicklow, Lily Kempson, trade union activist, lecturer, leader, as well as a rebel in the Irish Citizen Army, was the last surviving member of the Easter Rising of 1916. Lily and her family moved to Dublin when she was young. She lived in poverty: eight members of her family lived in two […]
Read More
Daughter to a German-born governess (E. Hessler) and an Irish Literature Lecturer, (E. O’Reilly) Madigan O’Reilly grew up speaking German, Irish and English and travelling sporadically to Potsdam to visit her mother’s affluent relations. Both her parents were staunch republicans. Her father wrote poems and articles for ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’ and, aged just 13, Madigan […]
Read More
At Soloheadbeg the war began, And the next was heard the song Of the rescue of Seán Hogan At the Station of Knocklong. On the same day, the first Dáil was meeting, an ambush takes place at Soloheadbeg, Co Tipperary that is now seen as being the opening skirmish in the War of Independence. An […]
Read More
The first meeting of Dáil Éireann took place in the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The session lasted a mere two hours. They were two of the most momentous hours in Ireland’s history. During this brief period the Dáil adopted a Constitution and approved the Declaration of Independence. By doing […]
Read More
Ireland’s Independence Day – The Centenary of the first Dáil and the Declaration of Independence. The Dáil approved a Democratic Programme, based on the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and read and adopted a Message to the Free Nations of the World in Irish, English and French. 1600 – Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy, […]
Read More
The Declaration of Independence was a document adopted by Dáil Éireann, at its first meeting in the Mansion House, Dublin, on 21 January 1919. It followed from the Sinn Féin election manifesto of December 1918. Texts of the declaration were adopted in three languages: Irish, English and French. The Irish Republic claimed jurisdiction over […]
Read More