Irish History - Aug. 29 - Sept. 3

August 28
1170 - Richard de Clare marries Aoife Ní Mhurrachadha and sets a precedent for Norman rule in Ireland
1710 - A board of trustees for linen manufacture is established
1788 - Sir Aubrey de Vere, poet, is born in Adare, Co. Limerick
1788 - James Digges La Touche, banker and philanthropist, is born in Dublin
1798 - Cornwallis reaches Athlone; Humbert entrenches in Castlebar
1814 - Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, novelist and journalist, is born in Dublin
1815 - Mary Letitia Martin, 'Princess of Connemara,' novelist, philanthropist and daughter of 'Humanity Dick' Martin is born in Ballynahinch Castle, Co. Galway
1860 - Napier's and Deasy's Land Acts are passed
1872 - The first horse drawn tram cars enter service in Belfast
1877 - Charles Stewart Parnell becomes president of Home Rule Confederation
1896 - Birth of Liam O'Flaherty
1929 - "Health And Efficiency" becomes the very first publication banned by the Irish Free State
1975 - Willie John McBride retires from international rugby
1998 - The Real IRA and the 32 County Sovereignty Committee are to be placed on an international terrorist list by the US Government. An FBI clampdown on American supporters of both groups is also planned
1998 - The Northern Ireland Assembly heads for its first major crisis after a confidential document discloses that senior Ulster Unionists warned the British government they could no longer endorse the Good Friday agreement
1998 - One of the largest passing-out parades for the Defence Forces in recent years takes place; 86 recruits receive their two-star private rating at a ceremony in Gormanston Army Camp, Co Meath
2000 - Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy faces calls for his resignation as former judge Hugh O’Flaherty withdraws his controversial nomination for vice-presidency of the European Investment Bank.

August 29
1729 - Birth of David La Touche, banking magnate and MP
1798 - Cornwallis reaches Tuam
1803 - Samuel Neilson, co-founder of the United Irishmen, dies
1844 - Death of Edmund Ignatius Rice, founder of the Irish Christian Brothers Order
1890 - The Science & Art Museum and The National Library of Ireland open
1871 - Birth of Jack B. Yeats, painter and author, in London
1950 - Birth of Dick Spring, politician; Labour Party leader and Tánaiste, in Tralee, Co. Kerry
1951 - Bill Graham, rock journalist and author, is born in Belfast
1975 - Death of Eamon de Valera
1992 - U2 plays the first of two shows at Yankee Stadium in New York. They are only the second rock artist to play in this venue. Billy Joel was the first
2000 - Irish Travellers are granted the same legal protection as other ethnic minority groups by a judge in London
2002 - Sixteen soldiers are injured during sectarian street clashes in flashpoint east Belfast
2002 - According to Transparency International’s annual corruption index, Ireland has slipped five places and is now perceived as the third most corrupt country in Europe.

August 30
1559 - Lord Sussex, is sworn in as Lord Deputy
1690 - First siege of Limerick ends
1708 - Penal Laws passed in
1695 restricting Catholics rights are strengthened for the second time
1709 - All registered Catholic priests in Ireland are required to renounce the claims of the Stuarts to the thrones of England and Ireland — only 33 out of 1,089 comply
1841 - The Cork Examiner, now The Irish Examiner, hits the streets for the first time
1855 - Birth of Feargus Edward O’Connor, Chartist leader
1874 - Michael Banim, storywriter, dies; along with his brother and co-author John, he sought to create sympathetic, yet non-stereotypical Irish characters in his stories
1875 - National synod of Catholic bishops begins at Maynooth; they renew condemnation of Queen's Colleges and condemn Trinity College
1911 - The Chamber of Commerce calls for Ireland to adopt Greenwich Mean Time — 25 minutes behind Irish Standard Time
1928 - William Trevor, pseudonym of William Trevor Cox, short-story writer and novelist, is born in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork
1950 - Birth of Dana, pseudonym of Rosemary Scallon, singer/songwriter
1967 - Black Velvet Band by the Dubliners enters the British charts
1997 - U2 returns home for the first of two shows at Dublin's Lansdowne Road stadium
2000 - SDLP leader John Hume, announces his intention to quit as a Stormont Assembly member
2000 - As many as 21 houses in the County Antrim town of Carrickfergus are attacked in incidents linked to the North’s bitter loyalist feud
2001 - Death of Donal O'Sullivan; he was Cork's captain in the 1956 All-Ireland football final against Galway and prominent in GAA administration at county and provincial level
2002 - The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson accuses the United States of trying to scale back plans to save the world’s poorest people.

August 31
1767 - Birth in Belfast of Henry Joy McCracken, United Irishman and leader of Ulster insurgents in 1798 rebellion
1803 - French "Irish Legion" organized in Brittany
1806 - Birth in Dublin of Charles Lever; fiction writer who was famous for his rendering of Trinity College's privileged atmosphere
1830 - William Fitzpatrick, biographer and historian, is born in Dublin
1957 - Birth of Colm O'Rourke, Meath Gaelic footballer, in Co. Meath
1994 - IRA announces a cease-fire
1997 - U2 pays tribute to Princess Diana at Dublin concert
2000 - First Minister David Trimble is understood to be involved in secret talks with the Ulster Volunteer Force in an attempt to resolve the bloody loyalist feud raging on the streets of Northern Ireland
2000 - Former SDLP Derry Mayor Annie Courtney is to replace John Hume as an Assembly member for Foyle
2000 - The world’s largest fishing vessel arrives in Dublin after completing its maiden voyage from Norway. "Atlantic Dawn", which took over two and a half years to build in a Norwegian shipyard, cost Irish owner Kevin McHugh £50 million. In the liturgical calendar, it is the feast day of St. Aidan.

September 1
1737 - Launch of the Belfast Newsletter, now the oldest surviving newspaper in Ireland or Britain, and one of the oldest in the world
1729 - Death of dramatist, essayist and publisher Sir Richard Steele, the Dubliner who founded The Tatler and The Spectator
1789 - Marguerite Gardiner, née Power; Countess of Blessington; author, is born near Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
1814 - Birth of James O'Flanagan, author, in Fermoy, Co. Cork
1830 - Dublin Zoo opens
1830 - The “Wild Colonial Boy” is shot dead in a gun battle with police at Cambelltown, Sydney. Contrary to the popular song, “The Wild Colonial Boy” was John Donohue, transported from Ireland in 1824
1856 - Birth of Irish Nationalist Party leader John Redmond in Ballytrent, Co. Wexford
1864 - Roger Casement, British consular official and Irish nationalist, is born in Sandycove, Co. Dublin
1870 - Isaac Butt founds the Home Government Association; Home Rule is now the objective of constitutional nationalists
1999 - Van Morrison beomes the first the first inductee to The Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame.
1999 - Five-year-old triplets Jake, Melissa and Denis Doherty from Knockanes, Headford, Co. Kerry, arrive for their first day at school in Knockanes National SchoolPhoto Credit: Eamonn Keogh
2000 - The number of people out of work falls to an 18-year low
2000 - The resumption of normal train services to Westport, Co. Mayo is celebrated with a platform party. Bemused but delighted passengers are greeted with delicacies and glasses of champagne laid on by the local Atlantic Coast Hotel, one of hundreds of establishments in the Mayo region hit financially by the 10 week rail stoppage
2002 - Hugh Orde, Northern Ireland’s new chief constable vows to crack down on paramilitary "godfathers" who have orchestrated a series of unsolved sectarian murders.

September 2
1022 - Maelsechlainn II - "The great high king of Ireland" - dies
1649 - Siege of Drogheda begins
1752 - The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Ireland and Britain, 170 years after mainland Europe: 2 September is followed by 14 September
1731 - Birth of Sir Lucius O'Brien, opposition politician, once described as 'a man who disagrees with the rest of mankind by thinking well of himself'
1784 - Sir Eyre Coote, the elder, dies of apoplexy at sea off Madras, while being pursued by French ships
1893 - Second Home Rule Bill passed by House of Commons
1933 - Cummann na nGaedheal, the Centre Party, and the National Guard, once known as the "Blueshirts", join forces to form Fine Gael
1942 - IRA Volunteer Tom Williams is hanged at Belfast's Crumlin Road Jail
1998 - Sinn Féin formally nominate Mid-Ulster MP Martin McGuinness as its representative to work with the International Commission on Decommissioning
2002 - Ireland forms an alliance with Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Greece in a bid to limit the expansion of nuclear energy
2002 - A Commission which includes loyalist paramilitaries calls on republican terror groups to join them in achieving calm along sectarian flashpoint areas.

September 3
1654 - The first Protectorate parliament meets; Ireland is represented by 30 members
1781 - Birth of William Sharman Crawford, radical politician, in Co. Down
1821 - The last day of George IV's visit to Ireland
1842 - In Kill, Co. Kildare, birth of John Devoy, journalist and leading member of the Fenians
1850 - Charters are granted to colleges in Belfast (now Queen’s University), Cork (now UCC) and Galway (now UCG), under the Universities (Ireland) Act
1854 - Birth of Fanny Parnell, Land League agitator and sister of Charles Stewart Parnell
1901 - James Hanley, novelist and short story writer, is born in Liverpool of Irish parents
1905 - Birth of James “Snowy” Dunne, widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest centre forwards. He played for Arsenal, Southampton and the Shamrock Rovers
1943 - Birth of Liam Maguire, trade unionist and campaigner for disabled people
1963 - Death of poet Louis MacNeice
1972 - Mary Peters wins the women's pentathlon in Munich and becomes the first Irish woman to win an Olympic Gold medal
1998 - Near the scene of the explosion, US President Bill Clinton and British Premier Tony Blair unveil a plaque in memory of the Omagh bombing victims
1998 - New Garda powers come into force which open the way for a clampdown on hardline extremists
2000 - Dom Columba Marmion, a Dublin priest who is credited with curing an American woman of cancer, is beatified by Pope John Paul IIIn the liturgical calendar, it is the feast day of St. MacNis, baptised by St. Patrick, and later consecrated Bishop by the Saint

Sources:

Web site: Irish Culture and Customs at http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/02Hist/8August3.html.
The Celtic League. This organization publishes the annual Celtic Calendar. To order your own copy, visit: The Celtic League. Irish Abroad. Somewhat sporadic, but they often highlight an important date in Irish history. To visit, please click: Irish Abroad. The Wild geese. They update Irish history weekly. To visit their keydates page, please click: The Wild Geese.