Category: England

#OTD in 1613 – A charter incorporates Derry as the city of ‘Londonderry’ and creates the new county of ‘Londonderry’.

01/03/2023.Reading time 7 minutes.

Despite the official name, the city is more usually known as simply Derry, which is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire, which in modern Irish is spelt Doire, and translates as ‘oak-grove/oak-wood’. The name derives from the settlement’s earliest references, Daire Calgaich (‘oak-grove of Calgach’). The name was changed from Derry in 1613 during […]

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#OTD in 2002 – Death of Spike Milligan, a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier, and actor.

27/02/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

‘All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.’ –Spike Milligan Spike Milligan’s early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the British government declared him stateless. […]

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#OTD in 1917 – Louisa Nolan is honoured with the medal for heroism during Easter Week 1916, by King George.

24/02/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

According to the Sinn Féin Rebellion handbook (pg. 259), she tended to ‘wounded officers and men’ during the battle on Mount Street Bridge. ‘Miss Nolan went calmly through a hail of bullets and carried water and other comforts to the wounded men,’ the publication notes. Her story made it across the Atlantic, where a Chicago […]

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#OTD in 1972 – Bloody Sunday Aftermath.

31/01/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

The day after Bloody Sunday, British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling announces a tribunal of inquiry ‘into the circumstances of the march and the incidents leading up to the casualties which resulted’. After being denied the right to provide an eye-witness account of what happened, an emotional Bernadette Devlin, the 24-year-old MP for Mid-Ulster who had […]

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#OTD in 1649 – King Charles I is beheaded for treason.

30/01/2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

When Richard Brandon, Executioner for the City of London refused involvement in the execution, emissaries were sent to Ireland, Scotland and Wales in search of a volunteer. There is much speculation about the masked executioner – it is thought that Richard Gunning of Co Galway carried out the execution – however, it is more likely that […]

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#OTD in 1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.

30/01/2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

On 20 April 1653 Cromwell dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as the Barebones Parliament, before being invited by his fellow leaders to rule as Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland from 16 December 1653. Oliver Cromwell’s skull has changed hands many times since the Lord […]

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#OTD in 1972 – In what is to become known as Bloody Sunday, the British Army kills 13 civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside district of Derry. A 14th marcher later dies of his injuries.

30/01/2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Thirteen people were shot and killed when British paratroopers opened fire on a crowd of civilians in Derry. Fourteen others were wounded, one later died. The marchers had been campaigning for equal rights such as one man, one vote. Despite initial attempts by British authorities to justify the shootings including a rushed report by Lord […]

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#OTD in 1547 – Henry VIII suppresses the Chapter of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin; it will not be restored until 15 June 1555.

08/01/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

The Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the head of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, elected by the Chapter of the cathedral. The office was created in 1219 or 1220, by one of several charters granted to the cathedral by Archbishop Henry de Loundres between 1218 and 1220.   For centuries, the Dean of St. Patrick’s […]

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#OTD in 1866 – Birth of Irish revolutionary and patriot, Maud Gonne MacBride, near Farnham, Surrey, England.

21/12/2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

Maud Gonne was an Irish revolutionary, suffragette, actress and a romantic muse for William Butler Yeats, as well as the mother to Nobel Peace Prize-winner, Sean MacBride. Maud Gonne was born near Farnham, Surrey, England. She founded the Irish Nationalist group, Inghinidhe na hÉireann (The Daughters of Ireland). She had a relationship with poet, William […]

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