Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
1762 – Francis Andrews is appointed first professor of history at the University of Dublin. 1800 – Richard Rothwell, painter, is born in Athlone, Co Westmeath. 1830 – Birth of Patrick Henry Jones, who attained the rank of Brigadier General in the Union army during the American Civil War is born in Co Westmeath. Jones […]
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Bridget Dirrane was the oldest native of Ireland’s Aran Islands and the second oldest person in Ireland. Éamon de Valera was the Irish political leader she most admired, but in a life touching three centuries, she met Pádraig Pearse, went on hunger strike in Mountjoy gaol, campaigned for John F Kennedy in Boston, and was […]
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Fr Griffin would have been known to the Crown Forces, as a known republican sympathiser. On the night of 8 September 1920, he was called out to attend Seamus Quirke, a First-Lieutenant in the local IRA after he was shot seven times at the docks. He also took part in the funeral mass of Michael […]
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1610 – Birth of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond; royalist soldier; and three times Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 1649 – New Ross town, Co Wexford, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell. 1680 – Birth of minister and church leader, John Abernethy, in Coleraine, Co Derry. 1745 – Death of Jonathan Swift. He was an Irish satirist, […]
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Socialist revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara, aged 39, is killed by the Bolivian army. The U.S.-military-backed Bolivian forces captured Guevara on 8 October while battling his band of guerillas in Bolivia and assassinated him the following day. His hands were cut off as proof of death and his body was buried in an unmarked […]
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Irish Nationalist political leader, Charles Stewart Parnell dies in Brighton, England. Parnell is one of the tragic characters of Irish politics. The disclosure of a long running affair with Katherine (Kitty) O’Shea, wife of Captain William O’Shea, who had been a Parnell supporter ended his political career and effectiveness. The 1889 divorce action and resulting […]
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“Why should Ireland be treated as a geographical fragment of England – Ireland is not a geographical fragment, but a nation.” –Charles Stewart Parnell Charles Stewart Parnell made his final public appearance speaking at Creggs, Co Galway in torrential rain. Already in poor health, the drenching rain effectively proved fatal. He returned to his home […]
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Dolores Keane was a founding member of the successful group De Dannan, and has since embarked on a very successful solo career, establishing herself as one of the most loved interpreters of Irish music. Keane was born in a small village called Sylane (near Tuam) in rural Co Galway. She was raised by her aunts […]
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Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore served as a musician and stretcher-bearer in the 24th Massachusetts Infantry during the American Civil War. His incredible post-army musical career includes penning “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, the tune he took from an old Irish antiwar folk song, “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, that was published under the name Louis Lambert. […]
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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 […]
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