Muhammed Ali defeated Joe Frazier in the so-called “thrilla in Manila”, on this day, October 1st, 1975. The fight, the third and final between Ali and Frazier, got its name from Ali’s rhyming boast that the fight would be “a killa and a thrilla and a chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila.” The […]
The Whiteboys (na Buachaillí Bána) were a secret Irish agrarian organisation which defended tenant farmer land rights for subsistence farming. They sought to address rack-rents, tithe collection, excessive dues, evictions and other oppressive acts. As a result they targeted landlords and tithe collectors. Their operations were chiefly in the counties of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, and […]
It’s the most famous dam in the world, and it was officially dedicated by President Franklin Roosevelt on this day, September 30th, 1935. Originally, it was simply called “the Boulder dam”, after the Boulder Canyon, in which it was built. It was renamed for President Herbert Hoover in 1947. The Dam was built to provide […]
John Devoy was an Irish nationalist leader and exile. He was the owner and editor of the Gaelic American, a New York weekly newspaper, 1903-1928. He dedicated over 60 years of his life to the cause of Irish independence. He is one of the few people to have played a role in the rebellion […]
Father of, well, many of us.
ON THIS DAY: 25 SEPTEMBER 1917: Thomas Ashe died from force feeding during a hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison Thomas Patrick Ashe, Tomás Pádraig Ághas was a member of the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and a founding member of the Irish Volunteers which he joined in November 1913. […]
Mayo agent, Captain Charles Boycott, was sent to a ‘moral Coventry.’ He described his plight in a letter to The Times: “…people collect in crowds upon my farm and order off all my workmen. The shopkeepers have been warned to stop all supplies to my house. My farm is public property, I can get no […]
Manuel I Komnemos of the Byzantine Empire, also known as “Manuel the Great”, breathed his last on this day, September 24th, 1180. He was the last of the great Byzantine Emperors, and with his death, the Empire began to fall into ruin and decay. Manuel was the third son of his father, John II. On […]
On the night of September 23rd, 1846, the German Astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle confirmed the discovery of the planet Neptune, which had been predicted by the French Mathematician Urban le Verrier, based on nothing but numbers. It was one of the great triumphs of 19th century science. Le Verrier discovered Neptune – which cannot be […]
The Iran-Iraq war, which would last for eight years and claim the lives of about a million people, began with an Iraqi invasion of Iran, on this day, September 22nd, 1980. The pretext for the invasion was the revolution in Iran, which had toppled the Shah and replaced him with a Shiite Islamic dictatorship. Saddam […]
Today, the 22nd September, marks the 100th anniversary of the Rineen Ambush, which took place at Rineen Cross, halfway between Miltown Malbay and Lahinch in 1920. The Volunteers in Co Clare had been active since 1917 and by the time of the ambush they had forced the RIC to abandon most of their rural barracks […]
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman appointed to the US Supreme Court, died over the weekend, triggering an American political crisis. But the first woman to sit on the court, Sandra Day O’Connor, is very much still alive, and celebrates the thirty-ninth anniversary of her confirmation, today, September 21st. O’Connor took to the bench in […]