“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 […]
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, […]
ON THIS DAY: 9TH NOVEMBER 1791: Napper Tandy convenes the first meeting of Dublin’s United Irishmen. The first meeting of the Society of United Irishmen Dublin at the Eagle Tavern in Eustace Street. Attended by such figures as Theobold Wolfe Tone, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, William Drennan and James Napper Tandy. #gript
Tutankhamun (c. 1342 – c. 1325 BC) was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the 18th dynasty during the New Kingdom of Egyptian history. His father was the heretical king Akhenaten, believed to be the mummy found in the tomb KV55. His mother […]
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. […]
Due to the massive imbalance in their demographics, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party announced the decision to relax the one-child policy. Under the new policy, families could have two children if one parent, rather than both parents, was an only child. Apart from the violence endured by many Chinese women who were […]
“If I die I know the fruit will exceed the cost a thousand fold. The thought of it makes me happy. I thank God for it. Ah, Cathal, the pain of Easter week is properly dead at last.” Terence MacSwiney wrote these words in a letter to Cathal Brugha on September 30, 1920, the 39th […]
Not a template for Practical Patriotism
ON THIS DAY: 20 OCTOBER 1933: The Irish Free State government purchases the copyright of Peadar Kearney’s “The Soldiers Song” – Amhrán na bhFiann – which becomes the national anthem It was composed “early in 1910 or late in 1909”, words by Peadar Kearney, and music by his childhood friend and neighbour Patrick Heeney on […]