#OTD in 1923 – Éamon de Valera announces end of operations against the Irish Free State, effectively ending the Irish Civil War.

27/04/2021.Reading time 3 minutes.

Éamon de Valera offered terms for negotiation to end the war which were rejected. But time was running out for the anti-Treaty side and on 24 May, de Valera issued the order to dump arms. In doing so he declared: “Soldiers of the Republic, Legion of the Rearguard… Military victory must be allowed to rest […]

#OTD in 1981 – Death of Bridget ‘Brede’ Connolly who played a pivotal role in the 1916 Rising by dispatching messages for James Connolly in the GPO.

15/11/2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

Born in Friarstown near Killerig, Co Carlow in 1890, her parents were Peter Connolly and Elizabeth Gaynor, the daughter of a nearby farmer in Grange. By 1911, the Connollys were living in Artane, Dublin and, according to local tradition, they may have been evicted from their home and farm in Friarstown. While no trace of […]

#OTD in 1972 – Kathleen Daly Clarke, Irish patriot, dies.

29/09/2020.Reading time 2 minutes.

Kathleen Clarke, née Daly was a member of Cumann na mBan, and one of very few privy to the plans of the Easter Rising in 1916. She was the wife of Tom Clarke and sister to Ned Daly, both of whom would be executed for their part in the Rebellion. She would later become a […]

#OTD in 1831 – Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa is born in Rosscarbery, Co Cork.

10/09/2020.Reading time 7 minutes.

Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was born in a small village called Reenascreena near Rosscarbery, Co Cork. He was the son of a tenant farmer, Denis O’Donovan and his wife Nellie O’Driscoll. While a young boy, the failure of the main food crop of the Irish population which was the potato, in successive years between 1845 and […]

#OTD in 1915 – Nationalist Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa is buried in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin.

01/08/2020.Reading time 4 minutes.

“WHATEVER HIS CRIME, THERE WAS A GREATER CRIMINAL THAN HE – THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT WHO MADE HIM WHAT HE WAS.” On his deathbed at age 83, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa sent for his old friends, John Devoy and Richard O’Sullivan Burke. He died a tired old warrior on 29 June 1915 in St Vincent’s Hospital on […]