Irish History, Culture, Heritage, Language, Mythology
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
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
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
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
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
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. Emmet’s rebellion itself where the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland was killed was little more than a riot. His place in Irish history is primarily due to his speech […]
Read More
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
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
The glorious failure of the 1798 rebellion had a profound impact on the young Robert Emmet. He romanticised the nationalist ideals held by the organisers, as demonstrated by an ode he wrote to them: “And those who were laid at rest Oh! Hallowed be each name; Their memories are forever blest – Consigned to endless […]
Read More
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 […]
Read More