Born in 1550, Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O’Neill) came from a line of the and the successors to the Chief’s of the O’Neills. He was the second son of Feardorcha Ó Néill and grandson of Conn O’Neill, the first Earl of Tyrne. At the age of nine he became a ward of Giles Hovenden, […]
Irish Harps go back 1000 years
Orange Order parade
There is an interesting snippet of Irish republican history available on You Tube. It is part of Belfast IRA volunteer Jimmy Drumm’s oration in 1969 at the reinternment of Peter Barnes and James McCormack who had been executed in England in February 1940. The speech was a significant gambit in the simmering split within the […]
Peter O’Neill was born in Coona, Cork, a descendant of the O’Neil clan of Co. Tyrone. He attended a hedge school in Inch, studied classics at Kilworth, and then began ecclesiastical studies at the Irish College in Paris, eventually teaching Celtic language and literature there. An exceedingly popular curate, he was appointed Parish Priest of […]
Sometimes historical anniversaries throw up interesting items. Examples of irony perhaps, or maybe indications as to how much things have altered over the course of time. On Friday evening, Sinn Féin was the main political party which took part in what was effectively a picket of a Catholic Church in Ballyfermot. They and others may […]
June 21, 1798 was the day on which the Irish insurgents were defeated at the Battle of Vinegar Hill. The British forces numbering up to 18,000 under the command of General Lake had been engaged in a sweep through Wexford that had forced the rebel army to muster its forces, to the number of up […]
June 20 marks a strange anniversary in Irish history. On that date in 1631, north African corsairs, or pirates, raided the village of Baltimore on the west Cork coast and took at least 107 of the villagers captive to be sold as slaves in Algiers. Most of those abducted were part of an English settlement […]
Secret Catholic societies against colonialism in Ireland
Armed with poles and boiling water
Having been crowned King of England, Scotland, and Ireland some 14 months earlier, on April 11th, 1689, William III of England landed in Ireland on this day to confront the Jacobite supporters of his father in law, the deposed King James II. A short military campaign that followed would lead to the Battle of the […]
This day 103 years ago – 8 June 1917 – an explosion in a copper mine in Butte, Montana, resulted in the death of 168 miners. 38 of them were from Ireland, by far the largest group of foreign-born workers. The fire in the Speculator Granite Mountain Mine shocked America and is still the worst […]