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 […]
One of the most intriguing and enigmatic of great Irish people is a man only known to us as Iohannis Scotti, or Eriugena. Both names merely signify that he was Irish, his real name or what part of Ireland he was born in, are a mystery. He was born here sometime between 800 and 825AD […]
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 […]
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 […]
The historical importance of Moore Street in the birth of the Republic has been highlighted in the Dáil by Aontú leader, Peadar Tóibín, who said that the area which was central to the Rising has been turned into an “outdoor toilet” by Government inaction. “Moore St is the birthplace of the Irish Republic. The lanes […]
Somebody said to me yesterday that living in Ireland at the moment had pushed them to the point where they were wondering if they were the ones who had gone mad, and everybody else was still perfectly sane. “You start to ask yourself that”, this person said, “when nothing makes sense any more”. They were […]
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 […]
“Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day the first day of the session The landlord’s marshal has decreed the rope will finish me” It may have romantic connotations of a rapier wielding highwayman, but the term “Raparee” is actually an Anglicisation of the Irish word Rópaire, and it refers to the end that usually awaited […]
In 1630, the Puritan colonist of the Massachusetts Bay colony, John Winthorp, used the image of the “City on a vision of purpose and destiny – which he believed would fail or thrive before the eyes of the world. “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes […]