#OTD in 1870 – Erskine Childers, novelist, member of the Royal Navy, and later an Irish nationalist, is born in London.

24/06/2022.Reading time 1 minute.

Erskine Childers was the author of ‘Riddle of the Sands’, an arms smuggler via The Asgard, father of the fourth president of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers, and would be executed by the Free State government for carrying an unlawful weapon. Childers supported the Anti-Treaty forces in the vicious Irish civil war which bedeviled the country. […]

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#OTD in 1850 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum; soldier and statesman, is born in Ballylongford, Co Kerry.

24/06/2022.Reading time 3 minutes.

Kitchener was the son of Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener who settled in Ballylongford, Co Kerry under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after the recent An Gorta Mór. His father was an unpopular tenant-evicting landlord. The young Kitchener was commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871. Kitchener saw active service […]

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#OTD in 637 – The Battle of Moira is fought between the High King of Ireland and the Kings of Ulster and Dalriada.

24/06/2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

The battle was between Domhnall, High King of Ireland and Congal Cláen, King of Ulster. It is described as one of the most sanguinary in early Irish History. Congal had killed the King of Ireland in 628 but was defeated the next year at the battle of Battle of Dun Cethirn and Domnall became King […]

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#OTD in 1985 – An Air India Boeing 747 from Toronto crashes off the Irish coast, killing all 329 people aboard in the world’s worst commercial air disaster at sea.

23/06/2022.Reading time 1 minute.

An Air-India Boeing 747 en route from Montreal to London crashed into the Atlantic off the Irish coast, killing all 329 passengers and crew. Indian government and airline officials said they suspected sabotage, and initial indications pointed to a bomb aboard the plane. By nightfall, a massive international air and sea rescue operation had recovered […]

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The Kilnasaggart Pillar Stone

23/06/2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

The Kilnasaggart Pillar Stone in Co Armagh is one of the oldest known inscribed stones in Ireland. Kilnasaggart stone stands in a field not far from Kilnasaggart Bridge. It is a tall pillar stone, 2 metres high, and inscribed with some Ogham script, crosses, most within circles, and a Gaelic inscription. The pillar-stone is said […]

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#OTD in 1998 – Death of actress, Maureen O’Sullivan, who was born in Boyle, Co Roscommon.

23/06/2022.Reading time 1 minute.

Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was the daughter of Mary (née Frazer) and Charles Joseph O’Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers who served in World War I. She attended a convent school in Dublin, then the Convent of the Sacred Heart at Roehampton (now Woldingham School), England. One of her classmates there was Vivian Mary Hartley, […]

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