#OTD in 1918 – Birth of comedian, writer and actor, Spike Milligan, in India.

16/04/2021.Reading time 4 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. […]

#OTD in 1871 – Birth of poet and playwright, John Millington Synge, in Dublin.

16/04/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

Birth of Irish playwright, poet and author John Millington Synge in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin. Synge was one of the leading lights of what was known as the Irish Literary Revival and along with William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, founding members of the Abbey Theatre. His most famous work is The Playboy of the Western […]

#OTD in 1941 – 15/16 | In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attacked Belfast, killing one thousand people.

15/04/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

Belfast was poorly prepared for the blitz compared with cities in Britain, few children had been evacuated, air raid shelters were sparse and defensive arrangements weak. Yet the Harland and Wolff ship building yards and Northern Ireland’s strategic role in the battle of the Atlantic made it a likely target. When German bombers struck on […]

#OTD in 1848 – The tricolour national flag of Ireland was presented to the public for the first time by Thomas Francis Meagher and the Young Ireland Party, in Dublin.

15/04/2021.Reading time 1 minute.

In 1848, Thomas Meagher and William Smith O’Brien went to France to study revolutionary events, and returned to Ireland with the new Flag of Ireland, a tricolour of green, white and orange made and given to them by French women sympathetic to the Irish cause. The acquisition of the flag is commemorated at the 1848 […]

#OTD in Irish History | 15 April:

15/04/2021.Reading time 14 minutes.

1642 – Irish Confederate Wars: A Confederate Irish militia was routed in the Battle of Kilrush when it attempted to halt the progress of a Parliamentarian army. Though outnumbered, Ormonde managed to defeat the rebels and marched on to Dublin by 17 April. 1642 – A Scottish army under Robert Munroe landed at Carrickfergus. 1707 […]

#OTD in 1921 – Sir Arthur Vicars was assassinated in Kilmorna, Co Kerry by the IRA.

14/04/2021.Reading time 6 minutes.

Sir Arthur Vicars is executed by the IRA in Co Kerry and around his neck the IRA placed a placard bearing the inscription ‘SPY. INFORMERS BEWARE. IRA NEVER FORGETS’. Vicars, who played a pivotal (and probably negligent) role in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907. Born in England, Vicars spent most of […]

#OTD in Irish History | 14 April:

14/04/2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

1661 – Birth of scientist, archaeologist, physician and MP, Sir Thomas Molyneux, in Dublin. He was the first to assert that the Giant’s Causeway was a natural phenomenon. 1859 – Death of novelist, Sydney, Lady Morgan, née Owenson. Born in Dublin, she is best known as the author of The Wild Irish Girl. 1836 – […]

#OTD in 1825 – Birth of Young Irelander, journalist and promoter of Canadian Federation, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, in Carlingford, Co Louth.

13/04/2021.Reading time 20 minutes.

Thomas D’Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee was an Irish-Canadian politician, Catholic spokesman, journalist, poet, and a Father of Canadian Confederation. The young McGee was a Catholic Irishman who hated British rule in Ireland, and worked for a peasant revolution to overthrow British rule and secure Irish independence. He escaped arrest and fled to the United States […]

#OTD in 1742 – Handel’s Messiah is performed for the first time, conducted by the composer, at Mr. Neale’s Great Music Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin, before an audience of 700.

13/04/2021.Reading time 5 minutes.

George Frideric Handel (who had lived in London for many years) decided to visit Dublin. He also had received an invitation from the British Viceroy of Ireland, the Duke of Devonshire in Dublin. At the time, Handel apparently was somewhat discontented with recent London reviews and with the treatment of some of his works, as a result […]

#OTD in 1939 – Birth of poet, Seamus Heaney, near Castledawson, Co Derry.

13/04/2021.Reading time 5 minutes.

“Even if the hopes you started out with are dashed, hope has to be maintained.” –Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney published his first poetry book in 1966, Death of a Naturalist, creating vivid portraits of rural life. Later work looked at his homeland’s civil war, and he won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature for his […]

Stair na hÉireann | History of Ireland

Category: Ireland

#OTD in 1918 – Birth of comedian, writer and actor, Spike Milligan, in India.

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#OTD in 1871 – Birth of poet and playwright, John Millington Synge, in Dublin.

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#OTD in 1941 – 15/16 | In the Belfast Blitz, two-hundred bombers of the German Luftwaffe attacked Belfast, killing one thousand people.

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#OTD in 1848 – The tricolour national flag of Ireland was presented to the public for the first time by Thomas Francis Meagher and the Young Ireland Party, in Dublin.

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#OTD in Irish History | 15 April:

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#OTD in 1921 – Sir Arthur Vicars was assassinated in Kilmorna, Co Kerry by the IRA.

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#OTD in Irish History | 14 April:

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#OTD in 1825 – Birth of Young Irelander, journalist and promoter of Canadian Federation, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, in Carlingford, Co Louth.

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#OTD in 1742 – Handel’s Messiah is performed for the first time, conducted by the composer, at Mr. Neale’s Great Music Hall, Fishamble Street, Dublin, before an audience of 700.

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#OTD in 1939 – Birth of poet, Seamus Heaney, near Castledawson, Co Derry.

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