Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
In January 1921, at his first Dáil meeting after his return to a country gripped by the War of Independence, de Valera introduced a motion calling on the IRA to desist from ambushes and other tactics that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a terrorist group, and to take on the British […]
Read More
“Come on, he cried, Come show your hand, you have boasted for so long, How you would crush this rebel band with your armies great and strong”. No surrender”, was his war cry, “Fight on lads, no retreat” –Brave Treacy cried before he died, shot down in Talbot Street.” Revolutionary, Seán Treacy was born at […]
Read More
In mid-January 1922 the Monaghan football team was arrested in the North on their way to play Derry in the final of the Ulster Championship. On 7 February the IRA responded by kidnapping forty-two prominent loyalists in Fermanagh and Tyrone and held them as hostages. A party of eighteen armed B-Specials, when travelling by train […]
Read More
On 7 January 1922 the Anglo-Irish Treaty was approved by the Second Dáil by a close vote of 64–57. On 5 February a convention was held to discuss this, and 419 Cumann na mBan members voted against as opposed to 63 in favour. In the ensuing Civil War, its members largely supported the anti-Treaty Republican […]
Read More
Now’s here’s a proof of Irish sense Here Irish wit is seen When nothing’s left that’s worth defence, We build a Magazine. –Jonathan Swift, Magazine Fort, c. 1737 The reason for Jonathan Swift’s ditty, in making light of the starfort, was that Dublin was relatively impoverished at that time: What is there to defend in […]
Read More
The Irish Volunteers (IVF) was a military organisation publicly launched in Dublin by Irish nationalists. It emerged in response to an article, ‘The North Began’ written by Eoin MacNeill in the Gaelic League paper ‘An Claidheamh Soluis’. The IRB knew they would need a highly regarded figure as a public front that would conceal the […]
Read More
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in the Irish Free State was an armed, plain-clothed counter-insurgency police unit that operated during the Irish Civil War. It was organised separately from the unarmed Civic Guard. The unit was formed shortly after the truce with the British (11 July 1921) and disbanded in October 1923. The CID was […]
Read More
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’ […]
Read More
“Come on, he cried, Come show your hand, you have boasted for so long, How you would crush this rebel band with your armies great and strong”. No surrender”, was his war cry, “Fight on lads, no retreat” –Brave Treacy cried before he died, shot down in Talbot Street.” Irish Revolutionary, Seán Treacy was born […]
Read More
Michael Fitzgerald also known as Mick Fitzgerald, was among the first members of the Irish Republican Army and played an important role in organising it. He rose to the rank of Commandant OC in the 1st Battalion, Cork No.2 Brigade. He died in the 1920 hunger strike at Cork Gaol. His death is credited with […]
Read More