Tag: Co. Kerry

#OTD in Irish History | 27 June:

27/06/2023.Reading time 9 minutes.

1488 – Sir Richard Edgecombe is sent to Ireland with power to grant pardons; he lands at Kinsale on this date. 1782 – The Relief Act gives Catholics rights concerning their education. 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Northern column remains in camp at Croghan. 1824 – Birth of Robert Nugent in Kilkeel, Co Down, who […]

Read More

#OTD in 1916 – Roger Casement goes on trial at the Royal Courts of Justice on a charge of treason.

26/06/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

In the early hours of 21 April 1916, three days before the rising began, Roger Casement was taken by a German submarine and was put ashore at Banna Strand in Tralee Bay, Co Kerry. Suffering from a recurrence of the malaria that had plagued him since his days in the Congo, and too weak to […]

Read More

#OTD in 1950 – Muiris Ó Súilleabháin, writer, drowns while swimming off Co Galway.

25/06/2023.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 […]

Read More

#OTD in 1850 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener of Khartoum; soldier and statesman, is born in Ballylongford, Co Kerry.

24/06/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

Kitchener was the son of Lt. Col. Henry Horatio Kitchener who settled in Ballylongford, Co Kerry under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after the recent An Gorta Mór. His father was an unpopular tenant-evicting landlord. The young Kitchener was commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871. Kitchener saw active service […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 20 June:

20/06/2023.Reading time 12 minutes.

77 AD – Roman General, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, became governor of Britainnia. While there, he completed the conquest of what is now Wales and northern England, and led his army to the far north of Scotland, establishing forts across much of the Lowlands. In 81, Agricola “crossed in the first ship” and defeated peoples unknown to the Romans until […]

Read More

#OTD in 2003 – Legendary Oscar-winning actor, Gregory Peck, passes away at his home in Los Angeles.

12/06/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla, California. One of the world’s most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play major film roles until the late 1970s. Catherine Ashe, the paternal grandmother of Gregory Peck, who emigrated to the United States in the 19th century was a relative of […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 4 June:

04/06/2023.Reading time 8 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast day of St Cornelius also known as Conchobar mac Meic Con Caille, Archbishop of Armagh. He entered the Augustinians at Armagh in 1140, before being made abbot in 1151. Later in 1174, Cornelius was consecrated bishop. Cornelius died on his return from a pilgrimage from Rome in […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 1 June (Meitheamh):

01/06/2023.Reading time 9 minutes.

1762 – Birth in Callan, Co Kilkenny of Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice, educator, philanthropist, and the founder of the Irish Christian Brothers’ Order. 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Battle of Bunclody. 1850 – US Census conducted on this day indicates that almost four million of the total population are ethnic Irish. Almost one million were […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 20 May:

20/05/2023.Reading time 11 minutes.

1311 – The war of the O’Briens of Thomond escalates as the Norman-Irish become involved on both sides: the de Burghs support Dermot O’Brien and Richard de Clare supports Donough O’Brien. There is a pitched battle at Bunratty on this date, with heavy losses on both sides; de Burgh and others are imprisoned. 1648 – […]

Read More