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 […]
On this night, the Black and Tans burnt Cork City Centre with a devastating series of fires that swept through the city centre; looted businesses, assaulted firefighters and shot at the local population. The burning and the subsequent controversy is one of the most significant events of the Irish War of Independence; on the day […]
ON THIS DAY: 3RD DECEMBER 1974: Maguire Seven charged with possessing materials for bomb making 40-year-old Irish born Anne Maguire, from North London, was convicted of possessing nitro-glycerine, which was then allegedly passed on for use to the IRA. Her husband, Patrick Maguire, 42 was also sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. Her two younger sons, […]
Known as the fastest field game in the world, a sliotar can top 93mph from a good strike. Hurling is also mentioned in the 11th/ 12th century Leabhar na hUidre, while further descriptions are to be found in 13th/14th century romantic tale Cath Mhaigh Tuireadh Chunga. This latter account details a very bloody hurling game […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Irish Citizen Army was founded at the height of the Dublin Lockout of 1913 to protect strikers at their demonstrations from the police. Three years later it took part, alongside the Irish Volunteers, in the insurrection of Easter 1916. Its leader James Connolly along with his second, Michael Mallin, were executed for their part […]
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 […]
“In the context of the recent loss of another eighteenth-century building – Curragower House – it really brings to the fore, the continued destruction of Georgian Limerick,” Dr O’Brien said.
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 […]