“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 […]
Phelim Roe O’Neill or Féilim Rua Ó Néill – was an Irish leader, from the famous O’Neill family, who led the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in Ulster on 23 October when the Irish rebels attacked Protestant plantation settlements and took garrison towns held by the Irish Army. The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation […]
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 […]
Colbert was the final man executed in Kilmainham Gaol on 8 May, 1916
ON THIS DAY: 18TH OCTOBER 1899: Death of Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh (Fr. Eugene O’Growney) He was an Irish priest and scholar, and a key figure in the Gaelic revival of the late 19th century. As a young boy he was very interested in the Irish language and after being ordained a priest, became an editor […]
The Land War of the early 1880s was about to be renewed after evictions increased and outrages became widespread.
The Nation was an Irish nationalist weekly newspaper, published in Dublin in the 19th century. It was founded by Charles Gavin Duffy, Thomas Davis & John Blake Dillon who at the time were part of Daniel O’Connell’s repeal association. #gript
Fr. O’Shea’s family had been evicted from their own home when he was a baby himself.
ON THIS DAY: 12 OCTOBER 1645: Archbishop Rinuccini arrives in Ireland to offer assistance to O’Neill and the Irish Confederate Catholics in their war against English Protestant rule He wrote this letter to his brother, describing the Irish he met: “The men are fine-looking and of incredible strength, swift runners, and ready to bear every […]
Following a Catholic uprising in 1641, Cromwell and the New Model Army set sail to Ireland to defeat this coalition and reclaim Ireland for parliament. This proved to be a bloody and brutal affair, forever remembered for a series of controversial massacres. The Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland had begun, which included the destruction of Drogheda […]
Charles the Great, known to history as Charlemagne, was crowned King of the Franks on this day, October 9th, 768AD. As King, he would go on, over the next 32 years, to unite most of Europe, and found the Holy Roman Empire. Successive wars brought the Kingdom of Lombardy (modern Italy) under his control, and […]
ON THIS DAY: 8TH OCTOBER 1974: SEÁN MACBRIDE became the first Irish person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize MacBride was born in Paris in 1904 and remained ther until his father’s execution after the Easter Rising of 1916, when he was sent to school at Mount St Benedict’s, Gorey. In 1919, aged 15, […]