Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
1264 – The Parliament of Ireland meets at Castledermot in Co Kildare, the first definitively known meeting of this Irish legislature. 1329 – The Bishop of Ossory is charged with fomenting feuds among the magnates; he flees to England and then, when summoned before the king, he flees to Rome. The king (Edward III, aged […]
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1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Rebels capture Tinahely, Co Wicklow and burn the town. Tinahely is unusual in that there is no Church in the village. Most of the village dates from the early part of the 19th century as it was rebuilt by Lord Fitzwilliam after it was burnt during the 1798 rebellion. The […]
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No musical instrument has ever had to carry so much baggage, surely, as the Irish harp. It has been the symbol both of Ireland under English rule and of the Irish Free State. Unadorned, on a green background, it was a rebel flag in 1916. While its earliest origins are lost, the Irish harp has […]
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Today is Bloomsday when Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce’s Ulysses takes a long rambling walk around Dublin. Joyce picked this date as it commemorates his first date with his future wife, Nora Barnacle.
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In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast day of St. Colman McRoi, a sixth-century abbot in Dublin. Bloomsday is a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived. It is observed annually on 16 […]
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Jim Larkin, a revolutionary socialist, dominated the Irish Trade Union movement. G. B. Shaw once described him as ‘the greatest Irishman since Parnell’. Today a statue of “Big Jim” stands on O’Connell Street in Dublin. The inscription on the front of the monument is an extract in French, Irish and English from one of his […]
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Prior to the publication of the Saville Report, thousands of people converge at the Bloody Sunday Memorial to walk to the Guildhall; symbolically completing the march which was prevented from reaching its destination in 1972. Results of Bloody Sunday Inquiry under the aegis of Lord Saville are published twelve years after it was established by […]
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1555 – After Henry VIII suppresses the Chapter of St Patrick’s Cathedral it is restored on this date. 1698 – Count George de Browne, governor of Livonia, Latvia, and field marshal in the Russian army, is born in Camas, Co Limerick. 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: The Rebel’s main division marches to Mountpleasant. 1828 – […]
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Caomhan is the patron saint of Inisheer (Inis Oírr), the smallest of the Aran Islands. Even though he is “by far the most celebrated of all the saints of the Aran Islands”, little is known about him. He is said to have been a disciple of Saint Enda of Aran. He is also said to […]
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Blues guitarist legend, Rory Gallagher, died in a London hospital from complications following a liver transplant at the age of 47. Rory’s family moved to Cork where he discovered blues music on American Forces Radio. By the time he was twenty-one, he was recognised as one of the finest guitarists in the world. In 1971, […]
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