#OTD in Irish History | 31 August:

31/08/2023.Reading time 11 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, it is the Feast day of St. Aidan of Lindisfarne, the Apostle of Northumbria. He was the founder and first bishop of the monastery on the island of Lindisfarne in England. A Christian missionary, he is credited with restoring Christianity to Northumbria. Aidan is the anglicized form of the original Old […]

#OTD in 1764 – Birth of United Irishmen Leader, James Hope, in Templepatrick, Co Antrim.

25/08/2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

James “Jemmy” Hope fought in the 1798 and 1803 rebellions against British rule in Ireland and born to a Presbyterian family originally of Covenanter stock. He was apprenticed as a linen weaver but attended night school in his spare time. Influenced by the American Revolution, he joined the Irish Volunteers, but upon the demise of […]

#OTD in 1798 – Death of United Irishman, Henry Joy McCracken.

17/07/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

“The rich will always betray the poor.” –Henry Joy McCracken Henry Joy McCracken was a cotton manufacturer and industrialist, Presbyterian, radical Irish republican, and a founding member, along with Theobald Wolfe Tone, James Napper Tandy, and Robert Emmet, of the Society of the United Irishmen. McCracken was born in High Street, Belfast on 31 August […]

#OTD in 1770 – Mary Anne McCracken, patriot and supporter of the United Irishmen, is born in Belfast.

08/07/2023.Reading time 6 minutes.

Mary Ann McCracken was a Belfast social reformer. Her father was Captain John McCracken, a prominent shipowner; her mother Ann Joy came from another wealthy family which made its money in the linen trade and founded the Belfast News Letter. Mary Ann’s liberal and far-sighted parents sent her to David Manson’s progressive co-educational school, where […]

#OTD in 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion | The Battle of Antrim.

07/06/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

Henry Joy McCracken issued a proclamation calling for the United army of Ulster to rise. The initial plan met with success, as the towns of Larne, Ballymena, Portaferry and Randalstown (captured by James Dickey) were taken and the bridge at Toome damaged to prevent the government rushing reinforcements into Antrim from west of the Bann. […]

#OTD in 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion | Rebellion breaks out in Ulster – Henry Joy McCracken issues proclamation calling United Irishmen in Ulster to arms.

06/06/2023.Reading time less than 1 minute.

“Army of Ulster, tomorrow we march on Antrim; drive the garrison of Randalstown before you and haste to form a junction with your Commander-in-Chief. 1st year of liberty, 6th day of June 1798”. Mostly Presbyterian rebels led by Henry Joy McCracken rose in Co Antrim on 6 June. They briefly held most of the county, […]

#OTD in 1798 – United Irish Rebellion begins in Wexford and in Leinster.

23/05/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

The short-lived, brutal 1798 Rebellion instigated by the United Irishmen commences when on the night of the 23rd May, the mail coaches leaving Dublin were seized – as a signal to those United Irishmen outside the capital that the time of the uprising had arrived. Founded in 1791, The United Irishmen had been inspired by […]

#OTD in 1820 – Death of physician, poet, educator and political radical, William Drennan, one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen.

05/02/2023.Reading time 3 minutes.

William Drennan’s poetic output included some powerful and moving pieces. He is chiefly remembered today for “Erin” written in 1800, in which he penned the first reference in print to Ireland as “The Emerald Isle”: “Nor one feeling of vengeance presume to defile The cause, or the men, of the Emerald Isle.” Drennan came to […]

#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 […]

#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 […]

Stair na hÉireann | History of Ireland

Tag: Henry Joy McCracken

#OTD in Irish History | 31 August:

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#OTD in 1764 – Birth of United Irishmen Leader, James Hope, in Templepatrick, Co Antrim.

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#OTD in 1798 – Death of United Irishman, Henry Joy McCracken.

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#OTD in 1770 – Mary Anne McCracken, patriot and supporter of the United Irishmen, is born in Belfast.

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#OTD in 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion | The Battle of Antrim.

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#OTD in 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion | Rebellion breaks out in Ulster – Henry Joy McCracken issues proclamation calling United Irishmen in Ulster to arms.

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#OTD in 1798 – United Irish Rebellion begins in Wexford and in Leinster.

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#OTD in 1820 – Death of physician, poet, educator and political radical, William Drennan, one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen.

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

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

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