The Richmond General Penitentiary was a prison established in 1820 in Grangegorman, Dublin as an alternative to transportation. It was part of an experiment into a penitentiary system which also involved Millbank Penitentiary, London. Richmond and Millbank penitentiaries were the first prisons in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (as it was at […]
On 18 September 1867 about fifty Irish Fenians, led by William Allen, attacked a prison van guarded by a large number of unarmed police at Hyde Road in Manchester, England. Their aim was to release two important Fenian prisoners, Thomas J. Kelly and Timothy Deasy. In the course of freeing the men, an unarmed police […]
Kevin Barry’s execution and Terence MacSwiney’s death precipitated a dramatic escalation in violence as the Irish War of Independence entered its most bloody phase. MacSwiney and Barry were elevated to the status of republican martyrs and presented to the world as examples of British tyranny in Ireland. But their deaths also led indirectly to a […]
1773 – Lord John Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, is born in Dublin. 1830 – Justin McCarthy, politician, novelist and historian, is born in Cork. 1869 – Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Fenian, contests and wins a Tipperary by-election in abstentia, but is declared ineligible as a convicted felon. 1912 – Birth in […]
A day of carnage in Dublin in an increasingly bitter and bloody Irish War of Independence; in total, 31 people were killed. Early in the day, Michael Collins ‘Squad’ and the Dublin Brigade wipes out much of British Intelligence in Dublin. Hours later, British troops take horrible revenge. In a superbly executed guerilla operation, Michael […]
The Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars between rival factions for the throne of England, does not on the face of it have much to do with Ireland or the Irish. True Ireland was nominally ruled by the English at the time, but this control really only extended to a variable but […]
This dreadful battle claimed more Irish lives in combat than any other battle in history. On the first day of battle, 1 July 1916, the 36th Ulster Division suffered an estimated 5,500 casualties almost all of whom were drawn from the north of Ireland. Nearly 2,000 Irish soldiers were killed in the first few hours […]
Pádraig’s younger brother was also educated at Westland Row and was a promising sculptor. He founded the Leinster Stage Society and acted in the Abbey Theatre. William shared his brother’s dream for an independent Ireland and assisted him at St Enda’s. The two brothers fought alongside each other in the GPO. Although not a ringleader, […]
Dolours Price and younger sibling Marian were part of a four-strong IRA unit which planted four car bombs outside the Old Bailey courthouse. Two detonated, causing massive damage and injuring more than 200 people, but no-one was killed directly. One man later died of a heart attack he suffered at the time. The IRA Volunteers […]
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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