#OTD in 1922 – Dáil Éireann approves the Constitution of the Irish Free State.

The Irish Free State constitution was adopted by an act of Dáil Éireann and given royal approval in December. It established many of the articles that had been set out in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Northern Ireland (Unionists) opted out of the Irish Free State, and under the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, this […]

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#OTD in 1931 – The IRA and other organisations are declared illegal in the Free State and the Catholic Church excommunicates members of all of them, including Saor Éire, which soon dissolves.

The Roman Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter declaring that the Irish Republican Army and Saor Éire, “sinful and irreligious and no Catholic can lawfully be a member of them.” The excommunication order was extended to members of all organisations outlawed under the ‘Public Safety Act’. The military tribunal created under the ‘Public Safety Act’ […]

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#OTD in 1933 – The Irish Free State government purchases the copyright of Peadar Kearney’s, ’The Soldiers Song’ (Amhrán na bhFiann) which becomes the national anthem.

The lyrics of ‘The Soldiers Song’ were written by Peadar Ó Cearnaigh (Kearney), an uncle of Brendan Behan, who together with Patrick Heeney composed the music. Before the present-day National Anthem was adopted, “God Save Ireland” was the unofficial anthem used by the Fenians and the official anthem was “God Save the King” until the […]

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#OTD in 1923 – The Civic Guard is renamed the Garda Síochana.

An Garda Síochána (meaning “the Guardian of the Peace”), more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (“Guardians”), is the police force of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána who is appointed by the Irish government. Its headquarters are in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. The force was originally named the Civic […]

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#OTD in 1920 – On hearing of British atrocities in Ireland, soldiers of the Connaught Rangers mutiny in protest; three are shot dead; a fourth, Private James Daly, is court-martialled and executed by firing squad.

The Connaught Rangers (The Devil’s Own) was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army originally raised in 1793 as the 88th Regiment of Foot (Connaught Rangers), which gained a reputation both for indiscipline and for its prowess as shock troops and streetfighters with the bayonet while serving under the Duke of Wellington during […]

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#OTD in 1870 – Erskine Childers, novelist, member of the Royal Navy, and later an Irish nationalist, is born in London.

Erskine Childers was the author of ‘Riddle of the Sands’, an arms smuggler via The Asgard, father of the fourth president of Ireland, Erskine Hamilton Childers, and would be executed by the Free State government for carrying an unlawful weapon. Childers supported the Anti-Treaty forces in the vicious Irish civil war which bedeviled the country. […]

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#OTD in 1945 – Éamon de Valera responds to Winston Churchill’s victory speech during which Churchill took one last jab at Irish neutrality.

Few outside of Ireland could understand the neutral stance of the Irish Free State during the war. Churchill most certainly did not when he said: “Owing to the action of Mr de Valera, so much at variance with the temper and instinct of thousands of Southern Irishmen who hastened to the battle-front to prove their […]

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#OTD in Irish History | 27 April:

1652 – Oliver Cromwell published a declaration that Irish Wolf Dogs or Irish Wolfhounds were prohibited to be exported and insisted that locals continue to breed sufficient numbers of the mighty hounds to hunt wolves. 1653 – The last major body of Irish Catholic troops under Phillip O’Reilly surrender to the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland […]

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#OTD in 1880 – Birth of political activist, Sean Hales, in Ballinadee, Co Cork.

During the 1921 elections, Hales was elected to the Second Dáil as a Sinn Féin member for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency.   During the 1922 general election, he was elected to the Third Dáil as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the same constituency. He received 4374 […]

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