Tag: Co. Galway

#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 – […]

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#OTD in 1852 – Lady Isabella Augusta Gregory (née Persse), playwright, folklorist and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, is born in Roxborough, Co Galway.

15/03/2021.Reading time 3 minutes.

Lady Gregory was a dramatist, folklorist and theatre director; also a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. George Bernard Shaw once described Lady Augusta Gregory as ‘the greatest living Irishwoman’. Lady Gregory, also known as Isabella Augusta, was born in Roxborough, Co Galway. She married Sir William Henry Gregory in 1880. Sir Gregory owned an estate […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 2 March:

02/03/2021.Reading time 11 minutes.

1718 – Birth of John Gore, Baron Annal, lawyer, politician and Chief Justice of the King’s Bench from 1764 to 1784. 1836 – Texas declares its independence from Mexico at a meeting in Washington on the Brazos, Texas. At the time, at least ten Irish-born soldiers were fighting at the Alamo (23 Feb-6 March) with […]

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#OTD in 1904 – Birth of writer, Muiris Ó Suilleabhain, on the Great Blasket Island, Co Kerry. Best known for his book, ‘Twenty Years A-Growing’.

19/02/2021.Reading time 4 minutes.

“I am a boy who was born and bred in the Great Blasket, a truly small Gaelic island which lies north-west of the coast of Kerry, where the storm of the sky and the wild sea beat without ceasing from end to end of the year and from generation to generation against the wrinkled rocks […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 19 February:

19/02/2021.Reading time 10 minutes.

1366 – Statutes of Kilkenny promulgated. 1887 – Ireland wins its first ever game in international soccer beating Wales 4-1 in Belfast. Prior to 1921 and the partition of the country, Ireland was represented by one national team. 1904 – Birth of writer, Muiris Ó Suilleabhain, on the Great Blasket Island, Co Kerry. Best known […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 10 February:

10/02/2021.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 1921 – While the War of Independence was supported (actively or passively) by the majority of Irish, the Catholic church railed against the violence.

24/01/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

A letter from the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. Thomas P Gilmartin is read at masses, following an ambush on English forces near Kilroe, Co Galway where members involving ‘D’ company, the ‘Auxiliary’ company in Galway had been ambushed: ‘The misguided criminals who fired a few shots from behind a wall and then decamped to a […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 19 January:

19/01/2021.Reading time 11 minutes.

1003 – Death of Abbot, Kilian of Cologne. Kilian was a native of Ireland. In 974, he and a group of Irish missionaries, led by Minnborinus of Cologne (died 986), arrived at Cologne where they established St. Martin’s Abbey in an island on the Rhine. Minnborinus ruled as first abbot; upon his death, Kilian succeeded […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 12 January:

12/01/2021.Reading time 9 minutes.

1709 – Birth of Benjamin Burton, politician and Revenue Commissioner. 1729 – Edmund Burke, orator, statesman and philosopher, is born in Arran Quay, Dublin. 1745 – Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl of Chesterfield, is the first official to allow Dubliners to roam in the Phoenix Park, and installed the central “Phoenix Monument”, a phoenix bird on […]

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