#OTD in 1916 – The first casualties of the Easter Rising were on Good Friday in Co Kerry.

21/04/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Three Volunteers, Con Keating, Charlie Monahan and Donal Sheehan, drowned when their car plunged off a pier into the sea while they were on the way to Cahirciveen in order to set up radio communications with Sir Roger Casement and the German arms ship the Aud. Five men set off from Dublin by train to […]

#OTD in 1921 – Sir Arthur Vicars was assassinated in Kilmorna, Co Kerry by the IRA.

14/04/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Sir Arthur Vicars is executed by the IRA in Co Kerry and around his neck the IRA placed a placard bearing the inscription ‘SPY. INFORMERS BEWARE. IRA NEVER FORGETS’. Vicars, who played a pivotal (and probably negligent) role in the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907. Born in England, Vicars spent most of […]

#OTD in 1923 – The Shadow Of A Gunman by Sean O’Casey premiered at the Abbey Theatre.

12/04/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

The Shadow of a Gunman, drama in two acts by Sean O’Casey, performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1923 and published in 1925. Originally titled ‘On the Run,’ it was the fifth play O’Casey wrote but the first to be produced. The comic-tragic play is set in the tenement slums of Dublin in […]

#OTD in Irish History – 12 April:

12/04/2018.Reading time 14 minutes.

1654 – The Ordinance of Union comes into effect, uniting Ireland and Scotland with England. 1816 – Sir Charles Gavan Duffy was born in Co Monaghan. He was self-educated as a journalist and founded the Nation, a nationalist weekly journal with Thomas Davis and John Dillon in 1842; ultimately, he emigrated to Australia and while […]

#OTD in 1923 – Liam Lynch, chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, is mortally wounded by Free State troops in the Knockmealdown Mountains, Co Tipperary.

10/04/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Liam Lynch was born in Barnagurraha, Co Limerick. He joined the Irish Volunteers after witnessing the arrests of the Kent family by British forces after the failed Easter Rising of 1916. Two of the Kent brothers, David and Richard were shot during their arrest. Richard would later die of his wounds and a third brother, […]

#OTD in Irish History – 10 April:

10/04/2018.Reading time 17 minutes.

1346 – Following the death of Ralph de Ufford, Roger Darcy is appointed justiciar. 1650 – Cromwell’s New Model Army is victorious at Macroom, Co Cork. 1662 – A charter of Charles II replaces Cromwell’s charter of Derry. 1726 – Birth of William Brownlow, parliamentarian and Volunteer. 1816 – Birth of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, […]

#OTD in 1981 – Bobby Sands was elected to Westminster in the Fermanagh/South Tyrone by-election, while on hunger strike in Long Kesh Prison, as MP for the constituency.

09/04/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, Frank Maguire, the Independent Republican MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, died suddenly of a heart attack, precipitating the April 1981 by-election. The sudden vacancy in a seat with a nationalist majority of about five thousand was a valuable opportunity for Bobby Sands’ supporters to unite the nationalist […]

#OTD in Irish History – 8 April:

08/04/2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

1719 – Birth of Viscount Edmond Pery in Limerick. He became involved in law and took a seat in the Irish House of Commons, where he held the position of Speaker of the House from 1771 and 1785. 1770 – Birth of banker and politician, John Thomas Campbell, in Newry, Co Down. He was a public […]

#OTD in 1914 – Cumann na mBan, Irish women’s Republican movement, was founded.

02/04/2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

Ní saoirse go saoirse na mban. Over 100 women gathered in Dublin to discuss the role of women in the lead-up to revolution. The meeting, at Wynn’s Hotel, was presided over by Agnes O’Farrelly. The first provisional committee of Cumann na mBan included Agnes MacNeill, Nancy O’Rahilly, Mary Colum, Jenny Wyse Power, Louise Gavan Duffy […]

#OTD in Irish History – 2 April:

02/04/2018.Reading time 11 minutes.

World Autism Awareness Day International Children’s Book Day In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast Day of St Brónach, a 6th-century holy woman from Ireland, the reputed founder and patron saint of Cell Brónche (church of Brónach), now Kilbroney, in Co Down. 1807 – Birth of Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, 1st Baronet, KCB, a […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: IRA