#OTD in 1941 – German bombs fall on North Strand, Dublin | 34 people are killed and 90 are injured.

31/05/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

On the night of 31 May 1941, four high-explosive bombs were dropped by German aircraft on the North Strand area of Dublin City. The casualties were many: 28 dead and 90 injured, with 300 houses damaged or destroyed. This bombing was interpreted either as a deliberate ploy by Hitler’s government to force neutral Ireland into […]

#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 1941 – A Luftwaffe bomb kills 13 people in Belfast.

07/04/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

The British government appeals to Éamon de Valera for help and he authorises fire brigades from Dublin, Dundalk, Drogheda and Dún Laoghaire to give assistance. On the evening of 7 April 1941, Fifteen German bombers believed to have been from the Kampfgruppe 26 path finder’s left their airfield in Northern Holland near the town of […]

#OTD in Irish History | 7 April:

07/04/2021.Reading time 13 minutes.

AD 30 – A favourite exhibit in Dublin’s National Museum is the 12th Century Cross of Cong. The True Cross that was brought to Ireland and displayed in different places around the country. The cross is so-called because it was kept in the Augustinian Friary at Cong, Co Mayo, for centuries. It was made to enshrine […]