Britain’s Salt Act of 1882 prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, a staple in their diet. Indian citizens were forced to buy the vital mineral from their British rulers, who, in addition to exercising a monopoly over the manufacture and sale of salt, also charged a heavy salt tax. Though it affected everyone, it […]
Thomas Clarke was born in Hampshire in the UK to Irish parents. They moved back to Dungannon when Thomas was 7 years old and the family spent the rest of his youth there. When he was 20, he joined the IRB and quickly rose to prominence, becoming head of the local IRB circle. He was […]
Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha was born near Dingle, Co. Kerry in 1883, one of nine children to Patrick Sugrue and Ellen Cleary. He attended the local CBS until he was 16 where he was educated under English, and learned to read and write Irish from a local school master with the assistance of the Irish grammer […]
ON THIS DAY: 4TH MARCH is shared by 3 famous people connected with Irish freedom, whose birthdays occurred on this day. Robert Emmet – 1778 was an Irish Republican and nationalist, patriot, orator and rebel leader. After leading an abortive rebellion against British rule in 1803 he was captured then tried and executed for high treason […]
Tithe Wars nó as Gaeilge Cogadh na nDeachúna. People were obliged by law to pay Tithes for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland, which was the official state sanctioned Church. What was ‘owed’ could be taken in the form of money, land, rent, produce or livestock. Struggling farmers did not want to be forced […]
Following on from our post a few days back which discussed the vicious Shankill butchers (a loyalist gang connected with the UVF); a Catholic civilian Francis Rice, (24), was abducted, beaten, tortured and had his throat cut almost through to the spine. His torture and death was described as grotesque and obscene. His body was […]
The Shankill Butchers were a group of 11 loyalists, many of whom were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force, which operated out of drinking dens in the Shankill Road area of Belfast hence the name. They abducted Catholics; tortured, maimed and mutilated their bodies before eventually killing them with butchers knives, axes and hatchets. Their […]
The Statute of Kilkenny were a set of laws made by the English Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lionel of Antwerp. They were passed at a meeting of the Irish parliament held at Kilkenny. It was to ensure that the English colonisers here did not adopt Irish customs and that the Irish must adopt English ones. […]
The level of poverty in Ireland was evidenced by further comments from O’Connell: “The last Population Returns of 1841 showed that, out of the whole rural population of Ireland, 46 per cent lived in a single room; the entire human family and the pigs occupied the same apartment together. The next fact was, that of […]
Many foreign tourists to this country are more than surprised to learn that the bones of St Valentine are to be found as relics in one of Dublin’s most beautiful, historic and mildly intriguing Catholic churches, that of the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, otherwise known as Whitefriar Street Church on Aungier Street. […]
A writer from the Illustrated London News describes what he sees in Clonakilty “I started from Cork, by the mail (says our informant), for Skibbereen and saw little until we came to Clonakilty, where the coach stopped for breakfast; and here, for the first time, the horrors of the poverty became visible, in the vast […]
As reported in the Leinster Leader Newspaper on the 10 February 1917, an explosion occurred in the Naas Carpet Factory and several young female employees were injured. As penned in the article: A rather serious accident occurred in the Naas Carpet Factory on Monday morning last resulting in injures to several of the girls employed […]