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The British statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was beheaded on this day in 1540. It was a messy affair – the executioner was drunk (some say, because Cromwell’s enemies spiked his drink to make the execution worse) and it took three swings of the axe to remove Cromwell’s head. It was a spectacular fall from grace: Cromwell […]
Most people have come across an incident of the German people being called “the hun” – a derogatory nickname applied to the German army by allied soldiers in both world wars. But where did the nickname come from? On July 27th, 1900, Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor (he was deposed at the end […]
ON THIS DAY, July 26th 1914, hundreds of Irish Volunteers met the Asgard at Howth and took deliverance of 900 guns and ammunition which would arm the rebels of 1916. The need to arm the Irish Volunteers had gained a fresh urgency after the Ulster Volunteer Force landed almost 25,000 rifles and between 3 and […]
The rebellion was crushed and he was captured then tried and executed for high treason against the British king George III of Great Britain Emmet’s speech to the court [The Speech from the Dock] could be regarded as the last protest of the United Irishmen: ‘ I have but one request to ask at my […]
Born in 1550, Aodh Mór Ó Néill (Hugh O’Neill) came from a line of the and the successors to the Chief’s of the O’Neills. He was the second son of Feardorcha Ó Néill and grandson of Conn O’Neill, the first Earl of Tyrne. At the age of nine he became a ward of Giles Hovenden, […]
A Catholic priest who stood with members of his flock to defend a statue of a saint in St Louis, Missouri, was shouted down and told the crowd was coming for the cathedral next. Fr. Stephen Schumacher, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, endeavoured to speak to the crowd who had come to […]
Peter O’Neill was born in Coona, Cork, a descendant of the O’Neil clan of Co. Tyrone. He attended a hedge school in Inch, studied classics at Kilworth, and then began ecclesiastical studies at the Irish College in Paris, eventually teaching Celtic language and literature there. An exceedingly popular curate, he was appointed Parish Priest of […]
Local activists who help maintain and upkeep the statue of republican Séan Russell in Fairview Park have said they feel Leo Varadkar’s call to have the statue taken down may have prompted others to deface the monument. On Monday, the statue was defaced by being painted with the rainbow flag colours, usually associated with the LGBT […]
A cartoon was circulated 1887 by John Fergus O’Hea, a highly regard political cartoonist, to mark the occasion of Queen Victoria’s jubilee celebrating the 50th anniversary of her reign. After eighty seven years since the Act of Union, Ireland was said to be “distracted, disloyal and impoverished.” It was published in the Weekly Freeman, July […]
Well, if you’ve ever watched Braveheart, you already knew he was an all-around bad egg, so in fairness, he probably was a racist as well, right? These people certainly think so: https://twitter.com/STVSophie/status/1271395157074685952 Robert the Bruce died on June 7th, 1329, 691 years ago last Sunday, so unfortunately it’s probably not going to be possible to […]
This day 103 years ago – 8 June 1917 – an explosion in a copper mine in Butte, Montana, resulted in the death of 168 miners. 38 of them were from Ireland, by far the largest group of foreign-born workers. The fire in the Speculator Granite Mountain Mine shocked America and is still the worst […]
Ó Néill (1585 – 6 November 1649) was a Gaelic Irish soldier and one of the most famous of the O’Neill dynasty of Ulster in Ireland. O’Neill left Ireland at a young age and began the formal continental military career serving in the Spanish army. He was a brilliant military strategist and tactician. With the […]
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