#OTD in 1969 – Bernadette Devlin, a newly elected MP, made a controversial maiden speech in the House of Commons.

22/04/2023.Reading time 26 minutes.

I understand that in making my maiden speech on the day of my arrival in Parliament and in making it on a controversial issue I flaunt the unwritten traditions of the House, but I think that the situation of my people merits the flaunting of such traditions. I remind the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. […]

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

09/03/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

#OTD in 1972 – Bloody Sunday Aftermath.

31/01/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

The day after Bloody Sunday, British Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling announces a tribunal of inquiry ‘into the circumstances of the march and the incidents leading up to the casualties which resulted’. After being denied the right to provide an eye-witness account of what happened, an emotional Bernadette Devlin, the 24-year-old MP for Mid-Ulster who had […]

#OTD in 1918 – Constance Markievicz while detained in Holloway prison, became the first woman to be elected MP to the British House of Commons.

28/12/2022.Reading time 4 minutes.

“I went out to fight for Ireland’s freedom and it does not matter what happens to me. I did what I thought was right and I stand by it.” –Constance Markievicz During the Easter Rising of 1916, Constance was second in command under Michael Mallin in Dublin’s St Steven’s Green. She proved fearless under fire […]