Tag: Co. Clare

Ruins of the O’Davoren Law School, Cahermacnaghten, Co Clare

03/04/2020.Reading time 3 minutes.

The Ó Duibhdábhoireann (O’Davoren) family were scholarly clan of Corcomroe, Thomond (modern-day Co Clare), active since medieval times. Famed for their sponsorship of schools and knowledge of history and Early Irish law, the Uí Dhuibh dá Bhoireann were known throughout Ireland as a literary family and held estates in the Burren down to the mid […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 25 March:

25/03/2020.Reading time 18 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast day of the Annunciation to Our Lady. 1306 – Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scots. 1635 – A shower of hailstones, with stones as large as four inches in circumference, was reported in Castletown, Co Offaly – a hen was killed and a woman was injured. […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 26 February:

26/02/2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

1797 – The Bank of Ireland suspends gold payments. 1854 – William Smith O’Brien, leader of the 1848 rebellion, is pardoned. He was convicted of sedition for his part in the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, but his sentence of death was commuted to deportation to Van Diemen’s Land. In 1854, he was released on […]

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#OTD in 1841 – Birth of inventor and developer of the modern submarine, John Philip Holland, in Co Clare.

24/02/2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

John Philip Holland emigrated to the US in 1873. Holland’s first submarine submission was rejected by the Navy Secretary as ‘a fantastic scheme of a civilian landsman’. The navy eventually relented and purchased it’s first submarine from Holland’s company in 1900 for $150,000. Holland also had a strong interest in aviation writing a paper in […]

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#OTD in 1874 – Irish painter, Frederic Burton, was appointed director of the National Gallery, London, and began an unprecedented programme of art collection.

20/02/2020.Reading time 1 minute.

As Director of the National Gallery, London, Burton bought over 500 works, many of them masterpieces by Botticelli, Canaletto, van Dyck and Leonardo da Vinci, creating possibly the finest art collection in the world. Burton’s painting, ‘Meeting on the Turret Stairs’ was voted by the Irish public as Ireland’s favourite painting in 2012 from among […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 10 February:

10/02/2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

1800 – The House of Lords votes for the Act of Union which sees Ireland lose its own parliament, direct rule is imposed on Ireland and ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland’ is created. 1842 – Birth of astronomer and writer, Agnes Mary Clerke, in Skibbereen, Co Cork. In 1885, she published her […]

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#OTD in 1899 – Creation of the Electric Boat Company by the father of the modern submarine, John Philip Holland.

07/02/2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

Holland emigrated to the US in 1873. Holland’s first submarine submission was rejected by the Navy Secretary as ‘a fantastic scheme of a civilian landsman’. The navy eventually relented and purchased it’s first submarine from Holland’s company in 1900 for $150,000. Holland also had a strong interest in aviation writing a paper in 1891 titled […]

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#OTD in 1973 – Death of piper and folklorist, Willie Clancy.

24/01/2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

Clancy was born into a musical family in the outskirts of Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. His parents, Gilbert Clancy and Ellen Killeen, both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute. Clancy’s father had been heavily influenced by local blind piper Garret Barry and passed much of Barry’s music on to Willie. […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 4 January:

04/01/2020.Reading time 13 minutes.

1581 – Birth of prolific scholar and church leader, James Ussher, in Dublin. He was the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625 and 1656. Most famous for his chronology that sought to establish the time and date of the creation as ‘the entrance of the night preceding the […]

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