“Quinctilius Varus, where are my eagles?!!!” is what Brian Blessed’s Emperor Augustus exclaims, in the BBC Classic “I Claudius”, upon hearing of the battle of the teutoburg forest, which took place on this day, September 9th, 9AD. The battle was the most catastrophic defeat the Roman Empire would suffer for several centuries. Three Legions, and […]
Newspapers report a potato blight has hit Ireland. High rents imposed by absentee landlords meant that most people could only afford to live on small tenant farms with inferior soil that only potatoes could grow on; but the potato crop was prone to disease and the farmers did not have extra land to rotate crops. […]
Michelangelo’s “David”, probably the most famous sculpture in the world, was first unveiled to the public on this day, September 8th, 1504, in the Piazza della Signoria, in Florence. The statue, as the name suggests, represents the David who defeated Goliath in the bible. David was a favourite of the Florentines because, as a small […]
The Legion of Mary, which remains the largest lay organisation in the Roman Catholic Church, was founded in Dublin on this day, September 7th, 1921, by Frank Duff, and celebrates 99 years in existence today. Almost a century after it was founded in a small room on Francis Street, Dublin, the Legion of Mary has […]
After the Treaty of Limerick and the Battle of the Boyne, the Irish and English parliaments brought in draconian measures to crush the Catholic population. Even though Catholics had retained ownership of a mere 22% of the land which was further reduced to 14%, the penal laws attempted to ensure that no Irish Catholic would […]
Oliver Cromwell, the butcher of Drogheda, died on this day in 1658, having suffered a painful end from a urinary tract infection that caused blood poisoning. Three years after he died, his body was exhumed and ceremonially hanged in chains, and then thrown into a pit, so that his enemies could be sure that he […]
Henry VI of England came to the throne on this day, August 31st, 1422, at the age of nine months. His disastrous reign would last 39 years, until it ended with the wars of the roses. His father, Henry V, was amongst the great English Kings, finally unifying the thrones of England and France, which […]
The Zulus never had an independent country again
The sack of Rome, considered by most historians to mark the fall of the Western Roman Empire, happened on this day, August 27th, 410AD. It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy. The Empire had been in decline for almost two centuries, with invasions, on and off, […]
The Dublin lock-out began led by Jim Larkin. William Martin Murphy dismissed hundreds of workers who he suspected of membership of the ITGWU. William Martin Murphy, a major employer at the time, was chairman of the Dublin United Tramway Company, owned Clery’s department store, and the Imperial Hotel and controlled the Irish Independent, Evening Herald, […]
Several interesting things happened on August 25th. Most prominently, the date saw the liberation of Paris by the Allies in 1944. But that tale pales into insignificance beside the story of Hugh Glass and the Grizzly Bear. Hugh Glass was an American frontiersman, who lived most of his life in that lawless wilderness of the […]
Mickey Devine was the last man to die on the hunger strike started by Bobby Sands in early March. As a young man Bloody Sunday had a deep effect on him, he was there with this brother-in-law who remembered Mickey rhetorically ask “How can you sit back and watch while your own Derrymen are shot […]