Have you ever heard the phrase “lose the battle but win the war”? The opposite happened to the Roman triumvir Mark Antony on this day in 30BC. Having been defeated at the Battle of Actium, Anthony and Cleopatra retreated to Alexandria, which was soon besieged by the forces of Octavian. For the whole month of […]
By July 29th, 1848, most of Ireland had been truly devastated by the Great starvation. Outside of Ireland, Europe was being convulsed with revolutions. In France, King Louis-Philippe was overthrown, to make way for the second republic. Revolutions seeking the vote, and liberalisation, broke out in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, and elsewhere. Inspired by these […]
The British statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was beheaded on this day in 1540. It was a messy affair – the executioner was drunk (some say, because Cromwell’s enemies spiked his drink to make the execution worse) and it took three swings of the axe to remove Cromwell’s head. It was a spectacular fall from grace: Cromwell […]
ON THIS DAY, July 26th 1914, hundreds of Irish Volunteers met the Asgard at Howth and took deliverance of 900 guns and ammunition which would arm the rebels of 1916. The need to arm the Irish Volunteers had gained a fresh urgency after the Ulster Volunteer Force landed almost 25,000 rifles and between 3 and […]
The rebellion was crushed and he was captured then tried and executed for high treason against the British king George III of Great Britain Emmet’s speech to the court [The Speech from the Dock] could be regarded as the last protest of the United Irishmen: ‘ I have but one request to ask at my […]
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 […]