Clansmen and women of native Irish families were lured to discuss terms with the English at Mullaghmast, Co. Kildare. To the famous Rath at Mullaghmast which has figured in Irish history from as far back as 82AD. The site consists of a raised circular rampart breached at two sides allowing grazing cattle to wander through […]
Daniel Breen – Dónall Ó Braoin – was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He was born in Grange, Donohill parish, County Tipperary, his father died when Dan was six, leaving the family very poor. He was educated locally, before becoming a plasterer […]
St. Stephen was the first Christian Martyr, killed by stoning for refusing to renounce his faith in Jesus Christ. Saul of Tarsus was present as a prominent persecutor of Christians. It was on this day December 26, 415 AD, his remains were recovered after having been lost for centuries. It is said that as the […]
Willie Clancy was born into a musical family in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. His parents both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute. Clancy’s father had been heavily influenced by local blind piper Garret Barry. Willie started playing the whistle at age 5, and later took up the flute. He first […]
By this time, 1.5 years into the worst starvation Ireland had experienced in the 19th century, the death and destruction of famine was gaining international headlines. Accounts were so horrific that many thought they were exaggerated, alas, it was not the case. Several went themselves to establish the truth only to find it worse than […]
99 years ago the Government of Ireland Act passed through both houses of parliament in London. The Act divided Ireland into two territories, “Southern Ireland” and “Northern Ireland”, each intended to be self-governing. “Northern Ireland” as defined by the Act, amounting to six of the nine counties of Ulster, Down, Derry, Armagh, Antrim, Fermanagh and […]
ON THIS DAY: 12 DECEMBER 2001: Nuala O’Loan, Police Ombudsman for the North of Ireland presents report to relatives of the Omagh bombing victims As the Police Ombudsman for the North of Ireland, Nuala O’Loan met with and presented the relatives of the victims of the Omagh bombing with a report into her findings into […]
Saint Finnian of Clonard was a member of Clanna Rudhraighe from the Ulaid in the vicinity of New Ross. According to some sources, Finnian studied for a time at the monastic centre of Martin of Tours in Gaul. Tours was noted for its austerity. He later went to Wales and continued his studies at the […]
In the aftermath of a series of IRA military successes, including the killing of the intelligence agents in Dublin on Bloody Sunday and the ambush on the Auxiliaries at Kilmichael on November 28, it was decided to declare martial law in four Munster counties; Cork, Tipperary, Limerick and Kerry which came into effect on December 10. That was […]
The Book of Kells is Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure and the world’s most famous medieval manuscript. It contains the four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate text which St Jerome completed in 384AD, intermixed with readings from the earlier Old Latin translation. The book is written on vellum (prepared calfskin) in a bold and […]
November 1920 in many ways marked a turning point in the War of Independence. It was a month in which the military conflict reached new levels with around 100 killed on both sides. It also witnessed a marked escalation in the number of officially sanctioned reprisals against the civilian population who by this stage, outside […]
St. Colmán is referenced and presented in many different sources such as the Irish Annals, geneologies and martyrologies. Born around 530 AD, he is associated through Irish genealogy, with the leading ruling dynasty of Munster of the time, with the Éoganachta, centred in Cashel from the 6th – 10th centuries. Colmán is remembered as the […]