#OTD in 1903 – Pádraig Pearse arrives in Ros Muc, Co Galway and takes up residence at his cottage in Inbhear.

13/09/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

Pádraig Pearse’s former holiday home in Ros Muc, Co Galway, was restored by Ó Conghaile and then again by Criostóir Mac Aonghusa, by 1943 Pearse’s sisters Senator Margaret Pearse and Mary Brigid Pearse handed the cottage to the State. A new visitor centre, Teach an Phiarsaigh, next to Pearse’s Cottage provides an introduction to the […]

#OTD in 1908 – Poet, educator and eventual Easter Rising leader, Pádraig Pearse, opens St. Enda’s school for boys (Scoil Eanna).

08/09/2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

“I dwell on the importance of the personal element in education. I would have every child not merely a unit in a school attendance, but in some intimate personal way the pupil of a teacher, or to use more expressive words, the disciple of a master … the main objective in education is to help […]

#OTD in 1975 – Death of Éamon de Valera from pneumonia and heart failure, while in Linden Convalescent Home, Blackrock, Co Dublin, aged 92.

29/08/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

Éamon de Valera was a man loved by his supporters but distrusted and hated by those who blamed him for the Irish civil war. (That latter sentence could equally apply to Michael Collins from the opposite side of the political divide.) Although born in Brooklyn, New York, “Dev” had an almost mystical and spiritual belief […]

#OTD in 1922 – Michael Collins is killed in an ambush. On the last day of his life, he set out from Cork in a convoy that passed through Bandon, Clonakilty, and Rosscarbery on its way to Skibbereen.

22/08/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Fuair siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann. “Give us the future, we’ve had enough of your past. Give us back our country, to live in, to grow in, to love.” –Michael Collins Michael Collins was killed during Ireland’s Civil War at Béal na mBláth – not far from Woodfield, Clonakilty, Co Cork where he […]

#OTD in 1911 – 3,000 Women at Jacob’s Biscuit Factory led by young Rosie Hackett, withdrew their labour in pursuit of a pay claim.

21/08/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

Rosie Hackett helped to galvanise and organise more than 3,000 women working in the factory. They withdrew their labour and the women were successful. They received better working conditions and an increase in pay. Rosie was just 18 years old at the time. When the Irish Transport and General Workers Union was founded in 1909, […]

#OTD in 1796 – Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin receives its first prisoners.

12/08/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Kilmainham Gaol is one of the largest unoccupied gaols in Europe, covering some of the most heroic and tragic events in Ireland’s emergence as a modern nation from the 1780s to the 1920s. Attractions include a major exhibition detailing the political and penal history of the prison and its restoration. Located approximately three miles outside […]

#OTD in 1922 – Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin, dies of a cerebral haemorrhage.

12/08/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

Arthur Griffith was one of the most important players in Irish Independence. Griffith founded Sinn Féin in 1905 as an Irish nationalist party whose objective was “to establish in Ireland’s capital a national legislature endowed with the moral authority of the Irish nation”. It was not until after the 1916 Rising that Sinn Féin became […]

#OTD in 1894 – Birth of nationalist revolutionary and politician, Dan Breen, in Grange, Donohill, Co Tipperary.

11/08/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

One of the most famous fighters in the fight for Irish freedom, Dan Breen is born in Co Tipperary. He was an iconic IRA figure in both the War of Independence and also the Civil War. Breen was involved in what is accepted as the first action of the War of Independence 1919-1921 when with […]

Key Events in Irish History

08/08/2018.Reading time 19 minutes.

An island people the Irish may be, yet the history of Ireland has never been intolerant or inward-looking. Instead, it is a story of a people profoundly aware of the wider world – its threats, its possibilities and its advantages. In addition, while the English and British connection will always remain key to any reading […]

Roger Casement – A Man of Mystery

07/08/2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

In the week after Roger Casement’s execution, on 3 August 1916, newsreel footage of the nationalist leader was shown in cinemas across America. At a conservative estimate, some 15 million US citizens saw the moving pictures. A century on, this fragment of film provides a fascinating insight. Casement is glimpsed at his desk writing: The […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: 1916 Easter Rising