Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
Barney McKenna was the last surviving founding member of the Irish folk group the Dubliners. With Luke Kelly’s powerful voice and force of nature on stage, Ronnie Drew’s gravelly memorable vocal sound, it was McKenna’s playing of the tenor banjo, coupled with John Sheahan’s fiddle, that gave the Dubliners their original instrumental quality. In the […]
Read MoreGregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California. One of the world’s most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play major film roles until the late 1970s. Catherine Ashe, the paternal grandmother of Gregory Peck, who emigrated to the United States in the 19th century was a relative of […]
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Guinness uses the harp of Brian Boru, or Trinity College Harp as their trademark. This circa 14th century harp which is still visible at Trinity College, Dublin has been used as a symbol of Ireland since the 16th century. Guinness adopted the harp as a logo, however it is shown in a form that faces […]
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456 – St Patrick returns to Ireland as a missionary bishop. 584 – Death of St Ruadhan (Ruadán), one of the twelve ‘Apostles of Erin’. He died at the monastery of Lorrha, Co Tipperary. 1605 – Death of Adam Loftus. He was Archbishop of Armagh, and later Dublin, and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1581. […]
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Goldsmith lived a thoroughly interesting life, perennially in debt and always fearing the debtors prison. His literary work has been praised and decried. Following his graduation from Trinity College in 1749, he became a kind of wandering minstrel through mainland Europe until he finally settled in London in 1756 where he indulged in a bohemian […]
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McKee became an apprentice in the publishing business at Gill & Son, Upper O’Connell Street, and then a compositor. McKee was a prominent member of the IRA. He was also friend to some senior members in the republican movement, including Éamon de Valera, Austin Stack and Michael Collins. Along with Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, […]
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Gary Moore was a guitar prodigy who was mentored in his teens by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. Green gave Moore his 1959 Les Paul Standard guitar after he left Fleetwood Mac. In Dublin, Moore joined the group Skid Row with Noel Bridgeman and Brendan “Brush” Shiels. It was with this group that he earned […]
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Sirius was a side-wheel wooden-hulled steamship built in 1837 for the London-Cork route operated by the Saint George Steam Packet Company. The next year, she opened transatlantic steam passenger service when she was chartered for two voyages by the British and American Steam Navigation Company. By arriving in New York a day ahead of the […]
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1774 – Death of novelist, playwright and poet, Oliver Goldsmith. 1818 – Birth of soldier, journalist, and writer of boys’ stories, Mayne Reid (pseudonym of Thomas Mayne) in Ballyroney, Co Down. 1838 – The Sirius was a side-wheel wooden-hulled steamship built in 1837 for the London-Cork postal route operated by the Saint George Steam Packet Company. At […]
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Featuring Cumann na mBan members leading the funeral of people shot during the Howth arms landing. Cumann na mBan was a women’s nationalist organisation founded to advance the cause of Irish liberty. Its constitution provided for the use of force by arms against British forces in Ireland. Founding members included Jennie Wyse Power, Agnes O’Farrelly, Louise Gavan […]
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