Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast Day of Saint Peter and Paul. 1315 – The Irish annals state that Edward de Brus “took the hostages and lordship of the whole province of Ulster without opposition and they consented to him being proclaimed King of Ireland and all the Gaels of Ireland agreed to […]
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Poet, writer and nationalist John Boyle O’Reilly was born in Dowth Castle, Co Meath, near Drogheda. For his part in the IRB and Fenian conspiracy, O’Reilly was sentenced to twenty years’ penal servitude. He served nearly two years in English prisons before being put aboard the convict ship Hougoumont, and transported to Australia in 1868, […]
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During 1899 and 1902, members of the British-Israel Association of London came to Co Meath to dig up the Hill of Tara. These ‘British-Israelites’ believed they would find buried there the Ark of the Covenant, the chest said to contain the Ten Commandments inscribed on stone tablets. Their strange and unlawful activity provoked a protest […]
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This year, the Summer Solstice falls on 20 June and is the longest day of the year, when there are approximately 17 hours of light and when the sun is at its highest point of the year in the northern hemisphere. The name comes from the Latin solstitium meaning “sun stands still”. It happens because […]
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1713 – Jonathan Swift becomes Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. 1748 – Sir Robert King, MP for Boyle, Co Roscommon, is created Baron Kingsborough. Earl of Kingston is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1768 for Edward King, 1st Viscount Kingston. He had already succeeded his father as fifth […]
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Born Alice Sophia Amelia Stopford in Kells, Co Meath, she lived in London where she met the historian John Richard Green. They were married in Chester on 14 June 1877. He died in 1883. John Morley published her first historical work Henry II in 1888. In the 1890s she became interested in Irish history and […]
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The Battle of Tara Hill was fought on the evening of 26 May 1798 between British forces and Irish rebels involved in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, resulting in a heavy defeat for the rebels. Following the outbreak of the rebellion signaled in Meath by the prearranged signal of the ceasing of a mail-coach near […]
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1561 – The first court of High Commission, a group of officials and Protestant clergy, is set up to enforce the Reformation in Ireland. 1754 – Birth of Dr. William Drennan in Belfast; physician, poet, educationalist political radical and one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen. Drennan’s poetic output included some […]
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In ancient times, the people of Ireland were internationally renowned for their love of law and their intricate justice system. Law was the articulation of fairness and the embodiment of justice, the application of the law to real scenarios was seen as a manifestation of justice in action, an affirmation of the natural harmonising order […]
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Fáilas was one of the four cities of the Tuatha Dé Danann, along with Gorias, Findias, and Murias, whence they came to Ireland. Morfessa was the instructor of learning there. In their departure the Tuatha Dé Danann took the magical stone of Fál with them. That stone would cry out to choose the rightful King […]
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