Tag: Northern Ireland

#OTD in Irish History – 29 June:

29/06/2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast Day of Saint Peter and Paul. 1315 – The Irish annals state that Edward de Brus “took the hostages and lordship of the whole province of Ulster without opposition and they consented to him being proclaimed King of Ireland and all the Gaels of Ireland agreed to […]

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#OTD in 1922 – The Four Courts garrison kidnaps Free State General JJ O’Connell in retaliation for the arrest of Leo Henderson I/C Belfast Boycott.

27/06/2020.Reading time 8 minutes.

On 26 June 1922, a raiding party of anti-Treaty IRA men arrived at Ferguson’s garage on Dublin’s Baggot Street, accusing them of doing business with Belfast. They said, it was in violation of the boycott the IRA had placed on the city due to violence against nationalists there. Leo Henderson, their leader, seized a number […]

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#OTD in 2014 – Author and activist, Gerry Conlon dies of cancer, aged 60.

21/06/2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

“I have been in prison for something I did not do. I am totally innocent. The Maguire Seven are innocent. Let’s hope the Birmingham Six are freed.” Gerry Conlon, was one of the so-called Guildford Four, convicted on fabricated evidence of the Guildford pub bombings in 1974 which killed five people and injured dozens more; […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 19 June:

19/06/2020.Reading time 9 minutes.

1647 – James, Duke of Ormond, agrees to surrender Dublin to English Parliament. 1798 – The United Irishmen Rebellion: The Battle of Ovidstown. 1820 – The Dublin Society for Improving Husbandry, which was originally founded on 25 June in 1731, becomes the Royal Dublin Society on this date. 1841 – Birth in Roscommon of Sir […]

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#OTD in 1994 – Loughinisland Massacre | The UVF shot dead six Catholic civilians and wounded five others during a gun attack on a pub in Loughinisland, Co Down.

18/06/2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

While the Republic of Ireland – Italy game is going on, two members of the Loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force walk into The Heights Bar in Loughinisland, Co Down with assault rifles and kill six Catholics who are watching the game. One of the dead was 87-year-old Barney Green, the oldest victim of the Troubles. No […]

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#OTD in Irish History – 18 June:

18/06/2020.Reading time 11 minutes.

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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#OTD in 2010 – David Cameron issues a formal, state apology for the “unjustified and unjustifiable” killing of 14 civil rights marchers by British soldiers on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972.

15/06/2020.Reading time 1 minute.

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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#OTD in 1986 – Belfast-born Patrick Joseph Magee, is found guilty of planting the Brighton bomb which killed five people and nearly wiped out most of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet.

10/06/2020.Reading time 3 minutes.

Belfast born, Patrick Joseph Magee is found guilty of planting the bomb at the Grand Hotel Brighton which killed five people, but missed its primary target, Margaret Thatcher. The bombing was testament to the ingenuity of the IRA and its bomb makers. The 30 lb bomb had been planted behind a bath in a room […]

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#OTD in 1922 – The newly created Royal Ulster Constabulary took over the policing of Northern Ireland.

01/06/2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

Following the partition of Ireland, it was decided to disband the RIC as an All-Ireland police force. In southern Ireland a new police force, the Civic Guard later Garda Siochana was formed, while in Northern Ireland the Royal Ulster Constabulary was established on 1 June 1922 as the police force for Northern Ireland. The RUC […]

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#OTD in 1981 – At 2:11 am, Raymond McCreesh dies on hunger strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh Prison. Later, the same day at 11:29 pm, he is joined in death by his friend and fellow hunger-striker, Patsy O’Hara.

21/05/2020.Reading time 1 minute.

The third of the resolutely determined IRA Volunteers to join the H-Block hunger strike for political status was twenty-four-year-old Raymond McCreesh, from Camlough in South Armagh: a quiet, shy and good-humoured republican, who although captured at the early age of nineteen, along with two other Volunteers in a British army ambush, had already almost three […]

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