#OTD in 1533 – England’s King Henry VIII, Lord of Ireland and ‘self declared’ King of Ireland (1541) marries Anne Boleyn after divorcing Catherine of Aragon.

25/01/2019.Reading time 1 minute.

Norman and English monarchs used the title ‘Lord of Ireland’ to refer to their Irish conquests dating from the Norman invasion of Ireland. In passing the Crown of Ireland Act 1542, the Irish Parliament granted Henry, by his command, a new title – King of Ireland. The state was renamed the Kingdom of Ireland. The […]

#OTD in 1978 – The European Court of Human Rights made its ruling on the case of alleged ill-treatment of internees during 1971.

18/01/2019.Reading time 5 minutes.

In 1971 the Hillside Singers, in a song designed to inspire worldwide unity, sang of how they’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony; apparently the inspiration for the song came from the writers’ experiences while delayed at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. Documents unearthed by the Irish human rights NGO and The Pat […]

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

08/01/2019.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 was […]

Piltown, Kilkenny and it’s Involvement In the War of the Roses

18/11/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars between rival factions for the throne of England, does not on the face of it have much to do with Ireland or the Irish. True Ireland was nominally ruled by the English at the time, but this control really only extended to a variable but […]

#OTD in 1974 – Guildford Pub Bombing by the IRA leaves five people killed and a further 65 injured.

05/10/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated two 6-pound gelignite bombs at two pubs in Guildford, England. The pubs were targeted because they were popular with British Army personnel. Four soldiers and one civilian were killed, whilst a further sixty-five were wounded. The bomb in the Horse and Groom detonated at 8:30 pm. It killed Paul […]

#OTD in 1867 – The Escape that Sparked the Manchester Martyrs: Thomas Kelly and Timothy Deasy are rescued in a Fenian attack on a police van in Manchester during which a police sergeant is shot dead.

18/09/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Manchester Martyrs – William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O’Brien – were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an organisation dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland. They were executed for the murder of a police officer in Manchester, England, in 1867, during an incident that became known as the Manchester Outrages. The […]

#OTD in 1979 – A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb kills British retired admiral Lord Mountbatten and three others while they are boating on holiday off the coast in Co Sligo.

27/08/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

An IRA bomb kills the Queen’s cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten in Co Sligo. Mountbatten regularly holidayed in the West of Ireland. The bomb exploded on his boat some minutes after he and family friends had departed the little port of Mullaghmore. Mountbatten’s grandson Nicholas, 14, and fifteen year old local, Paul Maxwell, 15, employed as […]

#OTD in 1991 – The convictions of the group of people known as the ‘Maguire Seven’ were quashed by the Court of Appeal in London.

26/06/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Court of Appeal overturns the sentences on the Maguire Seven. In 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised unreservedly for what happened. “I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. “They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.” Forced (beaten) confessions, contaminated forensic kits, a rush to […]

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

24/06/2018.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 Great Hunger. 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 in […]

#OTD in 1815 – Battle of Waterloo, when British forces, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, a Dubliner, defeat Napoleon’s forces.

18/06/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

The Iron Duke wasn’t the only Irish presence on the day — Napoleon’s horse Marengo was reared in Co Wexford, and the Duke of Wellington’s mount was from Co Cork. Arthur Wellesley was born in what is now Dublin’s Merrion Hotel and spent much of his childhood in Ireland, not that he was proud of it. […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Category: History of England