#OTD in 1949 – Death of Eoin MacNeill, Irish historian and founder of the Irish Volunteers.

15/10/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Eoin MacNeill was an Irish scholar, Irish language enthusiast, nationalist activist, and Sinn Féin politician. MacNeill has been described as “the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history.” A key figure of the Gaelic revival, he was a co-founder with Douglas Hyde of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture. […]

#OTD in 1908 – Poet, educator and eventual Easter Rising leader, Pádraig Pearse, opens St. Enda’s school for boys (Scoil Eanna).

08/09/2018.Reading time 7 minutes.

“I dwell on the importance of the personal element in education. I would have every child not merely a unit in a school attendance, but in some intimate personal way the pupil of a teacher, or to use more expressive words, the disciple of a master … the main objective in education is to help […]

#OTD in 1864 – Roger Casement, British consular official and Irish nationalist, is born in Sandycove, Co Dublin.

01/09/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

Fuar siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann. Roger Casement was born in Sandycove, Co Dublin to a wealthy protestant family, he initially served in the British diplomatic corps mainly in Africa. Described as the “father of twentieth-century human rights investigations”, he was honoured in 1905 for the Casement Report on the Congo and knighted […]

#OTD in 1874 – Cathal Brugha (b. Charles William St. John Burgess) is born in Dublin.

18/07/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Fuair sé bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann. Twas England bade our wild geese go, that ‘small nations might be free’; Their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves or the fringe of the great North Sea. Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or fought with Cathal Brugha Their graves we’d keep where the Fenians […]

#OTD in 1922 – Death of Cathal Brugha from injuries received when shot by Free State forces on O’Connell Street on 5 July.

07/07/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

#OTD in 1918 – Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and the Gaelic League were all proclaimed as illegal organisations by the Lord Lieutenant, Viscount French.

05/07/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

The proclamation stated that the proscribed organisations are dangerous and a ‘grave menace’ designed to ‘terrorise the peaceful and law-abiding subjects of His Majesty in Ireland’. It goes on to say that these associations ‘encourage and aid persons to commit crimes and promote and incite to acts of violence and intimidation and interfere with the […]

#OTD in 1870 – Bartholemew (Batt) O’Connor is born in Brosna, East Kerry.

04/07/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

Although not a direct participant in the 1916 Rising, Batt O’Connor was sentenced to be shot by British authorities but was sent to Wandsworth Jail and later Frongoch internment camp in North Wales. During the War of Independence he ran a number of safe houses and hid funds and documents for the IRA. He was […]

#OTD in 1916 – Death of Michael Joseph O’Rahilly, ‘The O’Rahilly’, a republican who took part in the Easter Rising, during which he was killed in the fighting.

29/04/2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

Michael Joseph O’Rahilly was born in Ballylongford, Co Kerry in 1875. He was a republican and a language enthusiast, a member of An Coiste Gnótha, the Gaelic League’s governing body. He was well-travelled, spending at least a decade in the United States and in Europe. He was a reasonably wealthy man; the Weekly Irish Times […]

#OTD in 1916 – Easter Rising Dublin – Day 4.

27/04/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

It is the fourth day of the Easter Rising and the remaining rebels are under constant attack. The GPO and Four Courts are being blitzed with machine gun and rifle fire, and large parts of Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) are up in flames. As British authorities come to terms with the situation in Dublin, fierce street […]

#OTD in 1914 – Large supply of guns from Germany were landed at Larne for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

24/04/2018.Reading time 8 minutes.

The UVF gun-running of April 1914, known as Operation Lion, was an effective military operation; though many of the 100,000-strong UVF remained unarmed after it. The Ulster Volunteer Force had been formed in January 1913 and from that date, small-scale gun-running had been carried out. In fact, up until December 1913, when royal proclamations made […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: Irish Volunteers