Redmond O’Hanlon is often described as the ‘Irish Robin Hood’ or Scotland’s Rob Roy McGregor. Born in Armagh in 1620 he joined the Irish Catholic rebel forces and served under Owen Roe O’Neill at the Irish victory at the battle of Benburb. He fled to France after the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland; his families’ lands […]
“It was in an English prison that they led him to his death. ‘I’m dying for my country,’ he said with his last breath. He’s buried in a prison yard, far from his native land And the wild waves sing his Requiem on lonely Banna Strand.” The story of Roger Casement’s landing and capture at Banna […]
Since the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising the men and the words that inspired the eventual founding of the Irish Republic are thankfully being given a prominence by at least some people in the public arena – in places such as the voluntarily restored monument of Kilmainham Gaol. There are two facets to Kilmainham […]
Organised by a seven-man Military Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Rising began on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916 and lasted for six days. These illustrations were by Brian O’Higgins, also known as Brian na Banban, who was an Irish writer, poet, soldier and politician. He was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers […]
When William Sydney Clements, the 3rd Earl of Leitrim inherited a vast estate from his father in 1854 he became a controlling landlord and bullying tyrant. The estate was massive and included lands in Leitrim, Donegal, Kildare and Galway. Lord Leitrim was obsessed with improving land productivity. He evicted families or sometimes paid them to […]
ON THIS DAY: 30TH MARCH 1849, Doolough Tragedy where a large crowd of starving people died on the journey to receive food they had been promised. 170 years ago on Friday night, March 30th, 1849, during the starvation, 600 people, including women and children, were living in the town of Louisborough. The starving people were […]
In 1974 local farmers digging a well near the Chinese city of Xian came across one of the greatest archaeological discoveries ever made. The discovery of a clay warrior figure soon revealed many more by state archaeologists. In fact there may be 8,000 terracotta figures in total, each individually modelled and purposely arranged in three […]
How the Bog Bodies told their story In March 2003, in a bog on the border of Meath and Offaly, in a place called Clonycavan, a body emerged from the peat beneath the shovel of a cutting machine. The workers stopped their machinery immediately and after inspecting the body suspected they had unearthed evidence of […]
The infamous and notorious Black and Tans will not be forgotten in Irish history. 100 years ago, the first tranche of them arrived from Britain, mainly recruited from the unemployed veterans of World War 1. They had 3 months training and their pay was ten shillings a day. Their ‘uniforms’ were mixed, some with Khaki […]
A farmer’s son, Peadar Ó Laoghaire was born in Clondrohid, Cork, and grew up in the Muskerry Gaeltacht. The Ó Laoghaire family have been in this area for centuries and he was a descendant of the Carrignacurra branch of same family. Both his mother and father were of the Ó Laoghaire clan. His mother was a […]
Today marks the centenary of the Battle of Crossbarry, a hugely significant victory for Tom Barry’s flying column in the War of Independence, and one of the largest battles in that conflict. Barry’s men were outnumbered 10 to 1 according to accounts, and were being trapped by a huge encircling operation involving 1,000 British troops […]
St Patrick is now one of the world’s best known Catholic figures but the earliest known celebration of the saint is believed to have been held on March 17, 1631, marking the anniversary of his death in the 5th century. In that year, bubonic plague raged across parts of Europe, especially impacting Italy where the epidemic […]