#OTD in 1923 – A mass Hunger Strike is launched by 424 Republican prisoners in Mountjoy Gaol in protest at their continued detention after the war’s end.

On 13 October 1923, Michael Kilroy, O/C of the IRA prisoners in Mountjoy, announced a mass strike by 300 prisoners, and it soon spread to other jails. Within days over 7000 republicans were on hunger strike. The figures given by Sinn Féin at the time were : Mountjoy Jail: 462; Cork Jail: 70; Kilkenny Jail: […]

Read More

#OTD in 1803 – Robert Emmet, Irish patriot, is executed in Dublin.

O! BREATHE not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonoured his relics are laid; Sad, silent, and dark be the tears that we shed, As the night dew that falls on the grave o’er his head. But the night dew that falls, though in silence it weeps, Shall brighten with […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 20 September:

1689 – The Enniskillen Protestants defeat Jacobite forces at Boyle, Co Roscommon. 1784 – Sir Richard Griffith, geologist and civil engineer, is born in Dublin. He was an Irish geologist, mining engineer and chairman of the Board of Works of Ireland, who completed the first complete geological map of Ireland and was author of the […]

Read More

#OTD in 1803 – Robert Emmet is found guilty of high treason, and before sentence of death was pronounced, Emmet was allowed deliver his justly celebrated speech from the dock.

My lords, as to why judgment of death and execution should not be passed upon me according to law, I have nothing to say; but as to why my character should not be relieved from the imputations and calumnies thrown out against it, I have much to say. I do not imagine that your lordships […]

Read More

#OTD in 1851 – Death of Anne Devlin, in The Liberties, Dublin.

Born in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow. Her cousins, Michael Dwyer and Arthur Devlin, took part in the 1798 Rebellion. After the acquittal and release from Wicklow Gaol of her father in 1800, her family moved to Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, where she met Robert Emmet who was leasing a house in nearby Butterfield Lane from where he […]

Read More

‘She Is Far From The Land’ by Thomas Moore

Robert Emmet’s love affair with Sarah Curran inspired Thomas Moore to write ‘She Is Far From The Land’. ‘She is Far from the Land’ By Thomas Moore She is far from the land, where her young hero sleeps, And lovers are round her, sighing; But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, For her […]

Read More

#OTD in 1803 – Robert Emmet is captured and arrested by the British.

Robert Emmet is captured in Dublin following a hopelessly unsuccessful attempt at insurrection. Sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, he was executed 20 September 1803. The ill-planned insurrection ended in utter confusion. The Wicklow contingent never arrived; the Kildare men retired thinking the rising had been postponed; while the men at Broadstairs waited vainly for […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 25 August:

1645 – Edward Worcester, Earl of Glamorgan; aristocrat and inventor, is sent to Ireland to raise troops for the king, and makes two secret treaties with the confederates on this date and on 20 December. 1764 – Birth of James Hope. He was a United Irishmen leader who fought in the 1798 and 1803 rebellions […]

Read More

#OTD in 1803 – In opposition to the Act of Union, Robert Emmet leads an armed outbreak that is easily suppressed.

Born in Dublin in 1778 into a fairly-well-to-do Protestant family, Robert Emmet was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. With high ideals of fraternity and equality, Robert, like his elder brother Thomas, became involved with the United Irishmen – an organisation formed in 1791 by Wolfe Tone, James Tandy, and Thomas Russell to achieve Roman Catholic […]

Read More

#OTD in Irish History | 23 July:

1803 – In opposition to the Act of Union, Robert Emmet leads an armed outbreak that is easily suppressed. 1830 – Birth of Fenian, John O’Leary, in Tipperary; referred to famously by Yeats in his poem “September 1913″: ‘Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone/It’s with O’Leary in the grave’. 1834 – St. Vincent’s Hospital, established by […]

Read More