#OTD in 1847 – Choctaw Indians collect money to donate to starving Irish Hunger victims.

Moved by news of starvation in Ireland, a group of Choctaws gathered in Scullyville, Ok, to raise a relief fund. Despite their meager resources, they collected $170 and forwarded it to a U.S. famine relief organisation. The Choctaw Indians may have seen echoes of their own fate in that of the Irish. Just 16 years […]

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#OTD in 1846 – Ballinlass Evictions.

This was an incident that highlighted vividly the injustices that Irish tenant farmers suffered during the 19th century. Many tenants were evicted for inability to pay rent, but quite often the evictions were at the ruthless whim of landlords. Over 300 people in the village of Ballinlass, Co Galway are evicted by their landlord. The […]

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#OTD in 1848 – ‘Starvation Fever of 1847’ article by Dr. Daniel Donovan of Skibbereen, Co Cork was published in the Dublin Medical Press.

Skibbereen was synonymous with the Genocide of 1845-52 with reports of pestilence, starvation and death from that area on an almost biblical scale. However, there are also stories of extraordinary courage and heroic deeds about those who ministered to the afflicted and who did so much to alleviate their great distress. Canon John O’Rourke, who […]

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#OTD in 1847 – Horrific Report | Irish Genocide.

Lord Dufferin (a twenty-one year old student at Oxford) and the Hon G.G. Boyle publish a report after visiting Skibbereen, Co Cork. “The scenes we have witnessed during our short stay at Skibbereen, equal anything that has been recorded by history, or could be conceived by the imagination. Famine, typhus fever, dysentery, and a disease […]

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#OTD in 1847 – Eyewitness report on An Gorta Mór by James Mahoney in The Illustrated London News.

‘I started from Cork… for Skibbereen and saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became visible, in the vast number of famished poor, who flocked around the coach to beg alms: amongst them was a woman carrying in […]

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#OTD in 1847 – An ailing Daniel O’Connell makes his final speech to House of Commons pleading for help for a starving Ireland.

‘She is in your hands — in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. I solemnly call on you to recollect that I predict, with the sincerest conviction, that one-fourth of her population will perish unless you come to her relief.’ Featured Image | The crypt of Daniel O’Connell | […]

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#OTD in 1877 – Death of Gaelic scholar, John O’Mahony, founding member of the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States, sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

THE FENIAN MOVEMENT – The Fenians wanted one simple desire for Ireland – Independence from British rule. The Great Hunger had a massive impact on Ireland. Many in Ireland believed that the government in London, to solve the ‘Irish Problem’, had deliberately did as little as possible to aid the people of Ireland – in […]

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#OTD in 1849 – An Gorta Mór Horror.

The horrifying recollections of An Gorta Mór sufferer Brigid O’Donnel were published in the London Illustrated News: “I lived on the lands of Gurranenatuoha. My husband held four acres and a half of land, and three acres of bog land; our yearly rent was £7 4s.; we were put out last November; he owed some […]

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#OTD in 1848 – The Paddle Steamer ‘The Londonderry’, with immigrants fleeing The Great Hunger, took shelter in Derry harbour.

The ‘Londonderry’, a paddle-steamer which berthed at the quayside in Derry one Sunday in the winter of 1848 was only seven years old, big for a ship of her kind, weighing 222 tons. She was manned by a crew of 26 and often sailed between Sligo and Liverpool. On this winter trip, while hugging the […]

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The Fenian Brotherhood

The Fenian Brotherhood, the Irish Republican Brotherhood’s US branch, was founded by John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny, both of whom had been “out” (participating in the Young Irelander’s rising) in 1848. Members were commonly known as “Fenians”. O’Mahony, who was a Celtic scholar, named his organisation after the Fianna, the legendary band of Irish warriors […]

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