Tag: Downpatrick

#OTD in Irish History | 15 July:

15/07/2023.Reading time 14 minutes.

1865 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe; statesman, journalist and newspaper magnate, is born in Chapelizod, Co Dublin. 1871 – Birth of Gerald O’Donovan, priest and novelist, in Co Down. 1879 – Birth of poet, Joseph Campbell, in Belfast. He is famous for the English words he wrote to the song My Lagan Love. 1899 […]

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#OTD in 597 – Death of St. Colomcille (meaning “Dove of the Church”), also known as St Columba.

09/06/2023.Reading time 5 minutes.

St Colomcille was a missionary monk who, some of his advocates claim, introduced Christianity to the Picts during the Early Medieval Period. He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. St Colomcille was born on 7 December ca. 521 A.D. to Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan in Gartan near Lough Gartan, […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 25 May:

25/05/2023.Reading time 8 minutes.

1315 – Edward Bruce (brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scots), having been invited by some Gaelic chiefs, leads an expedition to Ireland with the aim of conquering it, creating a kingdom of Ireland and driving out the Norman-Irish settlers. He lands at Larne on this date and is proclaimed king of Ireland. 1705 – […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 17 March:

17/03/2023.Reading time 18 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of St Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint. It is a public holiday in Ireland, Montserrat and the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador and widely celebrated across the world. 1762 – St Patrick’s Day is celebrated in New York City for the first time at the Crown and […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 14 January:

14/01/2023.Reading time 12 minutes.

1753 – Death of George Berkeley, Irish philosopher and Anglican. 1775 – John Hely-Hutchinson, Provost of Trinity College, fights a duel with William Doyle over abusive newspaper articles. Doyle is ill and has to lean on a crutch at the duel; on being challenged he had initially complained of sore eyes, and ‘objected to stand […]

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#OTD in 1767 – Birth of United Irishman, Thomas Paliser Russell, in Kilshanick, Co Cork.

21/11/2022.Reading time 9 minutes.

Although born in the Rebel County, he is now identified in the popular imagination of Co Down and elsewhere as “The man from God Knows Where”, from the ballad which recalls his charismatic but doomed efforts to raise the county in support of Robert Emmet’s rebellion of 1803. Thomas Russell joined the British army in […]

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#OTD in 1803 – Execution of Thomas Paliser Russell in Downpatrick for ‘high treason’.

21/10/2022.Reading time 8 minutes.

Born in Dromahane, Co Cork to an Anglican family, Thomas Russell joined the British army in 1783 and served in India. He returned to Ireland in 1786 and commenced studies in science, philosophy and politics. in July 1790 he met Theobald Wolfe Tone in the visitor’s gallery in the Irish House of Commons and they […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 15 July:

15/07/2022.Reading time 14 minutes.

1865 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe; statesman, journalist and newspaper magnate, is born in Chapelizod, Co Dublin. 1871 – Birth of Gerald O’Donovan, priest and novelist, in Co Down. 1879 – Birth of poet, Joseph Campbell, in Belfast. He is famous for the English words he wrote to the song My Lagan Love. 1899 […]

Read More

#OTD in 597 – Death of St. Colomcille (meaning “Dove of the Church”), also known as St Columba.

09/06/2022.Reading time 5 minutes.

St Colomcille was a missionary monk who, some of his advocates claim, introduced Christianity to the Picts during the Early Medieval Period. He was one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. St Colomcille was born on 7 December ca. 521 A.D. to Fedhlimidh and Eithne of the Ui Neill clan in Gartan near Lough Gartan, […]

Read More