#OTD in 1893 – Birth of General Liam Lynch, Chief of Staff, IRA, in Limerick.

09/11/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Liam Lynch was born in Barnagurraha, Co Limerick to Jeremiah and Mary Kelly Lynch. At 17 he was apprenticed to O’Neill’s hardware in Mitchelstown. Shortly after his apprenticeship began he joined the Gaelic League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He joined the Irish Volunteers after witnessing the arrests of the Kent family by British […]

#OTD in 1920 – The Siege of Tralee: Ten people die in a day and night of violence in Co Kerry.

31/10/2018.Reading time 10 minutes.

“When the hills were bleedin’ And the rifles were aflame To the rebel homes of Kerry, The Saxon strangers came, But the men who dared the Auxies And fought the Black and Tan Were the Boys of Barr na Sráide Who hunted for the wren.” Two RIC constables were shot dead in Abbeydorney by IRA […]

#OTD in 1920 – Newspaper cutting from the ‘Daily Graphic’. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: ‘Mrs Muriel MacSwiney, widow of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence McSwiney, leaving Brixton Prison for the last time before her husband’s death.

26/10/2018.Reading time 1 minute.

Muriel MacSwiney leaves Brixton Prison ‘Daily Graphic’ 26 October 1920 Newspaper cutting 30 cm x 26 cm Newspaper cutting from the ‘Daily Graphic’. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: ‘Mrs Muriel MacSwiney, widow of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, leaving Brixton Prison for the last time before her husband’s death, which occurred yesterday, […]

#OTD in 1920 – After 74 days on Hunger Strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney died.

25/10/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Following his court-martial in August 1920, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, greeted his sentence of two years in prison by declaring: ‘I have decided the term of my imprisonment: I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.’ Four days earlier, British troops had stormed the City Hall in Cork and arrested […]

#OTD in Irish History – 25 October:

25/10/2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar it is the Feast Day of Blessed Thaddeus McCarthy. He was a bishop who never ruled his see, even though he was appointed to two of them: Bishop of Ross, Ireland in 1492 and Bishop of Cork and Cloyne in 1490. 1212 – John Comyn, Archbishop of Dublin, dies and is […]

#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.

13/10/2018.Reading time 6 minutes.

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: […]

#OTD in 1920 – Court-martial of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork for possession of seditious articles and documents.

16/08/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

‘One armed man cannot resist a multitude, nor one army conquer countless legions; but not all the armies of all the empires of earth can crush the spirit of one true man. And that one man will prevail’. –Terence MacSwiney Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney is under court-martial over which Colonel James, Staffordshire Regiment, presided, assembled […]

#OTD in Irish History – 16 August:

16/08/2018.Reading time 13 minutes.

1793 – The Convention Act (1793) was aimed at preventing the recurrence of events like the Convention of the Volunteers in 1782 where armed groups (of Protestants) from various parts of Ireland assembled in Dublin and were able to overawe the Government at a time when there were few troops in the country. Contrary to […]

#OTD in 1920 – Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested by British; he immediately goes on hunger strike.

12/08/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

“It’s not those who inflict the most, but those that endure the most, that shall prevail.” –Terence MacSwiney Terence MacSwiney was arrested in Cork for possession of seditious articles and documents, and also possession of a cipher key. He began a hunger strike in protest and was joined by ten other prisoners. IRA officers Liam […]

#OTD in Irish History – 12 August:

12/08/2018.Reading time 12 minutes.

In the Liturgical calendar, today is the Feast day of St Muiredach mac Echdach of Killala. 1646 – Archbishop Giovanni Rinuccini, papal nuncio to the Irish Confederate Catholics, condemns their adherence to Ormond’s peace terms for failing to fully recognise Catholicism. 1652 – ‘Act for the Settling of Ireland’ allows for the transplantation to Clare […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: Terence MacSwiney