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 […]
ON THIS DAY: 17 JUNE 1871: The Westmeath Act and the unbroken resistance offered by secret Catholic societies against colonialism in Ireland. The Protection of Life and Property Act in Certain Parts of Ireland was passed by the House of Commons in June 1871. It was also known as the ‘Westmeath Act’ as it came […]
Matt Talbot died of a heart attack in Granby Lane on Trinity Sunday, 7 June 1925, whilst making his way to Mass in St. Saviour’s Church on Dominick Street. His life would have gone unnoticed were it not for the cords and chains discovered on his body when he died suddenly that day. No one […]
Ó Néill (1585 – 6 November 1649) was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O’Neill dynasty of Ulster in Ireland. O’Neill left Ireland at a young age and began the formal continental military career serving in the Spanish army. He was a brilliant military strategist and tactician. With the […]
ON THIS DAY: 30th May, Feast day of Joan Of Arc “You Englishmen, who have no right in this Kingdom of France, the King of Heaven sends you word and warning, by me Jehanne the Maid, to abandon your forts and depart into your own country, or I will raise such a war-cry against you as […]
Hundreds of unarmed United Irishmen were killed by British forces in the Gibbet Rath massacre on the Curragh of Kildare following their surrender OTN in 1798. The rebellion of 1798 was strongly supported in Country Kildare and the rebels managed to take a number of towns and hold the British forces at bay for more […]
A Marist priest and Irish historian, he is known for his writings and his rejection of revisionist Irish history and historians. He relayed in an interview with History Ireland that he felt stifled in UCD and ironically, it was in Cambridge, which was originally the origin of revisionism, that he found the data and evidence […]
I was ten in 1974. It was the year that I mainly remember for the fact that Dublin won the All-Ireland and I had been at my first big game – although not my first ever game – in Croke Park, when they beat Cork in the semi-final. The other main memory I have is […]
And the murder of Baothnalach MacAodhagáin (Catholic Bishop of Ross) The Battle of Macroom was a significant encounter that took place on the 10th May 1650, during the Cromwellian assault on Ireland. An English Parliamentarian force under the command of Roger Boyle (Lord Broghill) engaged a big Irish force that was commanded by Irish Confederate […]