#OTD in Irish History – 22 March:

22/03/2019.Reading time 11 minutes.

Feast Day of Saint Darerca of Ireland, sister of Saint Patrick. 1686 – With the return of a Catholic monarchy – James II – payments to the Catholic hierarchy are authorised; Catholics are appointed to government positions; replacement of Protestant by Catholic soldiers intensifies. 1768 – Birth of writer, Melasina Trench, in Dublin. 1829 – […]

Queen Scotia

21/03/2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

Scota appears in the Irish chronicle Book of Leinster (containing a redaction of the Lebor Gabála Érenn). According to Irish Folklore and Mythology, the battle of Sliabh Mish was fought in this glen above the town of Tralee, where the Celtic Milesians defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann but Scotia, the Queen of the Milesians died […]

#OTD in 1921 – Irish War of Independence: A number of attacks take place in Co Kerry.

21/03/2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Headford Ambush The Kerry No.2 Brigade Flying Column organised the Headford Ambush who, while billeted in the vicinity of Headford on 21 March 1921, learned that a detachment of British troops were due to return by train from Kenmare to Tralee later that day, and decided to ambush them. The attack was led by Dan […]

#OTD in 2016 – Kerry County Museum paid €10,600 for a Treasure Island-style map drawn by Sir Roger Casement to show where he had buried gold and other valuables after landing at Banna Strand on Good Friday 1916.

21/03/2019.Reading time 2 minutes.

The map, and accompanying notes, kept by an agent in Britain’s MI5, went under the hammer at Chorley’s Auctioneers in Cheltenham, England on Tuesday with a top pre-sale estimate of £2,000 (€2,500). But, after what auctioneer Simon Chorley described as ‘frenzied bidding’, the hammer fell at £7,000 to an unnamed telephone bidder. Kerry County Museum’s […]

#OTD in 1923 – Anti-Treaty IRA officer Charlie Daly and three other Republican fighters are executed by Free State troops at Drumboe Castle, near Stranorlar in Co Donegal where they had been held since January.

14/03/2019.Reading time 7 minutes.

They were shot in retaliation for the death of Lt. Cannon, a pro-treaty National Army soldier, in an ambush at the barracks at Creeslough. CHARLIE DALY, THE KERRYMAN WHO DIED IN FAR DONEGAL (By Seamus G O’Kelly) It was the summer of 1920. Republican forces in Munster, particularly in Cork and Kerry, were being hard […]

Irish Civil War | What Really Happened at Ballyseedy?

10/03/2019.Reading time 20 minutes.

You can still find bullet-marked walls in Ballymullen Barracks, Tralee. There, young Kerrymen faced squads after “interrogation” carried out by officers beating them with a hammer. Worse than these “authorised killings” were the atrocities carried out “unofficially”. Of these, one-act will always stand out in infamy the blowing up of nine prisoners at Ballyseedy Cross […]

#OTD in 1883 – Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha, writer under the pseudonym ‘An Seabhac’ and promoter of the Irish language is born in Dingle, Co Kerry.

10/03/2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha was born in the Gaeltacht near Dingle in Co Kerry in 1883. Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha went on to become an organiser for Conradh na Gaeilge, cycling all over the countryside to set up branches and promote the Irish language. As a writer, he took the pen-name ‘An Seabhac’, the Hawk, writing books […]

#OTD in 1923 – Nine Republican prisoners are taken from Ballymullen Barracks in Tralee to Ballyseedy Cross, ostensibly to clear a mined road.

07/03/2019.Reading time 4 minutes.

Kerry had seen more violence in the guerrilla phase of the Civil war than almost anywhere else in Ireland. By March 1923, sixty-eight Free State soldiers had already been killed in Kerry and 157 wounded. Eighty-five would die there by the end of the war. The day after Five Free State soldiers were killed by […]

#OTD in 1877 – Birth of seaman and Antarctic explorer, Tom Crean, in Annascaul, Co Kerry.

25/02/2019.Reading time 5 minutes.

The reasons why history has been unkind to Crean are twofold: first, the politics of post-independence Ireland; and second, what George Bernard Shaw described as the greatest of evils and worst of crimes — poverty. Tom Crean was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer from Annascaul, Co Kerry. He was a member of three major […]

#OTD in 1874 – Birth of sculptor, Jerome Connor, in Annascaul, Co Kerry.

23/02/2019.Reading time 7 minutes.

Jerome Connor was born in Coumduff, Annascaul, Co Kerry. In 1888, he emigrated to Holyoke, Massachusetts. His father was a stonemason, which led to Connor’s jobs in New York as a sign painter, stonecutter, bronze founder and machinist. Inspired by his father’s work and his own experience, Connor used to steal his father’s chisels as a child […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: Co. Kerry