After the Birmingham Pub bombings the previous day, six men were arrested; Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Hill, Robert Hunter, Noel McIlkenny, William Power (Belfast-born Catholics), and John Walker who was a Derry-born Catholic. All six had lived in Birmingham since the 1960s, and were arrested on the way to a funeral in Belfast, while in custody […]
Glaisne Ó Cuilleanáin was born in a family in Connaught remarkable for its piety. He was the oldest of six brothers, of whom were devoted themselves to the service of Christ in the ranks of the clergy secular or regular. He went to Louvain to study there, and later to Rome. Having completed his studies, […]
On this day in 1920, the body of Fr Michael Griffin was found dumped in a shallow grave in Cloghscoltia near Barna in Co Galway. The popular priest, who was serving in the parish of Rahoon was known as being a zealous supporter of the republican cause and was believed to have been targeted because […]
Theobald Wolfe Tone, posthumously known as Wolfe Tone (20 June 1763 – 19 November 1798), was a leading Irish revolutionary figure and one of the founding members of the United Irishmen, and is regarded as the father of Irish republicanism and leader of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. He was captured in Buncrana on 3 November […]
Willie James Pearse – Uilliam Seamus Mac Piarais – was an Irish republican executed for his part in the Easter Rising. He was a younger brother of Pádraig, a leader of the rising; Willie was very devoted to Pádraig and the brothers had a very close relationship. Pearse inherited his father’s artistic abilities and became […]
On the night of 14 November 1920, during the War of Independence, 28-year-old Fr. Michael Griffin, was taken from his home – by men suspected to be Black and Tans – and was never seen again. On 20 November, his body was found in an unmarked grave in a bog at Cloghscoltia near Barna; he […]
Catherine McAuley was born in Dublin in 1778. In 1824 she used her inheritance from an Irish couple she had served for twenty years to build a large House of Mercy where she and other lay women would shelter homeless women, reach out to the sick and dying and educate poor girls. The House on […]
Pádraig Mac Piarais (Padraig Pearse) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary; he who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion. Pádraig, his brother Willie, […]
Eoghan Ruadh Ó Neill was born around 1580, the son of Art Ó Neill and a daughter of Hugh Conallach O’Reilly of Breifne. He had had least 8 brothers and sisters and many cousins and wider family, all connected through marriage to many of the leading native Irish families of Ulster. The Plantation of Ulster […]
The Traditional Story Tested Against the Evidence. “The Gunpowder Plot” of 1605 – known at the time as the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason -was billed as a failed assassination plot against Protestant King James I of England by a group of English Catholics led by Robert Catesby. The official story was that […]
ON THIS DAY: 3 NOVEMBER 1845: Irish Delegation visited LORD Heytesbury to act immediately and stop the export of food from Ireland because millions were starving. He declined. On that date, a delegation of concerned and alarmed Irishmen including Daniel O’Connell, Mayor O’Sullivan of Dublin and twenty others visited Britain’s Viceroy in Ireland, Lord Heytesbury. […]
Eileen Quinn was 24 years old, seven months pregnant, and nursing her nine-month old child outside her farmhouse at Kiltartan when she was shot dead as two lorry loads of an Auxiliary division of the Royal Irish Constabulary passed her home. Eileen Quinn was murdered by British Crown Forces 99 years ago; shot from a military lorry […]