History of Harold’s Cross, Dublin

30/04/2021.Reading time 4 minutes.

One explanation of the origin of the name Harold’s Cross is that it is derived from the name given to a gallows, which had been placed where the current Harold’s Cross Park is situated. Harold’s Cross was an execution ground for the city of Dublin during the 18th century and earlier. In the 14th century […]

#OTD in 1916 – Eoin MacNeill’s last minute bid to call off the Easter Rising.

22/04/2021.Reading time 3 minutes.

The letter penned on Easter Saturday, 22 April 1916, by Irish Volunteers chief Eoin MacNeill, dispatched to rebel leaders in an effort to call off the planned revolution. “Volunteers completely deceived. All orders for to-morrow Sunday are entirely cancelled,” says the note signed by MacNeill on what is now a tatty piece of paper, embossed […]

#OTD in 1871 – Birth of poet and playwright, John Millington Synge, in Dublin.

16/04/2021.Reading time 2 minutes.

Birth of Irish playwright, poet and author John Millington Synge in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin. Synge was one of the leading lights of what was known as the Irish Literary Revival and along with William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, founding members of the Abbey Theatre. His most famous work is The Playboy of the Western […]

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

08/09/2020.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 […]