A pamphlet on the event, titled “The wonderful discovery of witches in the county of Lancaster” became a best seller
Almost 4000 years ago the High King of Ireland, King Luaghaidh Lamhfada, founded An Aonach Tailteann. The festival was to honour and celebrate his deceased mother, Queen of Tailte, and as a tribute to the dead. On the 1st of August, kings, queens, and noblemen travelled from all over the country to watch the games […]
“We are bound to love our own people with a special and peculiar love, a love that is not founded upon the common characteristics of the human race, but which is founded upon the special and distinctive character of our own nationality.” – Father Mícheál Ó Flannagáin Michael Flanagan was born near Castlerea in Co. […]
ON THIS DAY: 12 AUGUST 1652: English Parliament under Cromwell passes the Act for the Settlement of Ireland (1652) Cromwell was in Ireland from 15 August 1649 to 26 May 1650. As Olivercomwell.org – a charity founded to advocate for Cromwell writes: “He accomplished a more complete control of Ireland than had been achieved under […]
A total of 341 people were arrested
“Ireland has wronged no man, has injured no land, has sought no dominion over others. Ireland is treated today among other nations of the world as if she was a convicted criminal. If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this, then I am proud to be a rebel and shall […]
On this day, August 1st, in 1915, the old Fenian Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa was buried in Glasnevin cemetery in one of the largest political funerals ever witnessed before or since in Dublin. At his graveside, the poet, nationalist and revolutionary, Pádraig Mac Piarais gave an electrifying oration which was a speech for the ages, remembered as […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]