Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
1851 – Charles Plummer, Irish language scholar and editor of Lives of the Irish Saints, is born. 1897 – Death of novelist, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford, née Hamilton. Born in Rosscarbery, Co Cork, her light romantic fiction was popular throughout the English-speaking world in the late 19th century and is best known by her book, Molly […]
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The Irish government Representative in Washington, Timothy Smiddy wrote to External Affairs minister Desmond Fitzgerald about US concerns regarding the execution of Anti-Treaty Irregulars, especially the PR fallout if women were to be executed. “A report given last week to the American papers by Mrs Despard from Paris (a cutting of which has already been […]
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1774 – Dudley Cosby (Baron Sydney), former MP for Carrick, commits suicide. 1803 – Death of brewer and the founder of the Guinness brewery, Arthur Guinness, in Dublin. He was also an entrepreneur and philanthropist. 1837 – Death of pianist, composer, and teacher, John Field. He was born in Dublin into a musical family, and […]
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It’s said that the blood that flows in all of us; every one of us in the country is blood that came from across the sea. Our identity is best understood from a maritime perspective. For centuries, Ireland has been a haven for explorers, settlers, colonialists, navigators, pirates and traders absorbing goods and people from […]
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1761 – Birth of Henry Welbore Agar (Ellis), 2nd Viscount Clifden, perhaps the only person to sit consecutively in four different Houses of Parliament – the two in Ireland and the two in England. 1856 – Alfred Godley, classical scholar and writer, is born in Ashfield, Co Cavan. 1879 – Death of Nevill Coghill. Born […]
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Ireland’s Independence Day – The Centenary of the first Dáil and the Declaration of Independence. The Dáil approved a Democratic Programme, based on the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, and read and adopted a Message to the Free Nations of the World in Irish, English and French. 1600 – Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy, […]
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In the Liturgical Calendar, today is the Feast Day of St Manchán mac Silláin, Manchianus in Latin sources, is the name of an early Irish saint, patron of Liath Mancháin, now Lemanaghan, in Co Offaly. He is not to be confused with the scholar Manchán or Manchéne, abbot of Min Droichit (Co Offaly). There are […]
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1003 – Death of Abbot, Kilian of Cologne. Kilian was a native of Ireland. In 974, he and a group of Irish missionaries, led by Minnborinus of Cologne (died 986), arrived at Cologne where they established St. Martin’s Abbey in an island on the Rhine. Minnborinus ruled as first abbot; upon his death, Kilian succeeded […]
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In 1971 the Hillside Singers, in a song designed to inspire worldwide unity, sang of how they’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony; apparently the inspiration for the song came from the writers’ experiences while delayed at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. Documents unearthed by the Irish human rights NGO and The Pat […]
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1667 – Cattle exports to England are prohibited. 1671 – Catholic gentry present petition to Charles II. 1688 – Birth of Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, PC. He was an English political leader and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Dorset served twice as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, from 1731 to 1737 and again from […]
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