Irish History - Sept. 18-24

Long, great picnic on Saturday - here you go!

September 18
1846 - James Standish O'Grady, novelist, is born in Castletownbere, Co. Cork
1867 - Kelly and Timothy Deasy are rescued in a Fenian attack on a police van in Manchester during which a police sergeant is shot dead
1889 - Kathleen Behan, née Kearney, 'Mother of All the Behans' and folk singer is born in Dublin
1851 - Anne Devlin, friend and comrade of Robert Emmett, dies in Dublin
1914 - Home Rule Act on Statute Book but is suspended for the duration of World War
1941 - Stephen Hayes, a former IRA chief of staff, is kidnapped on 30 June; he later claims to have been 'court martialled' and tortured by the IRA; Seán McCaughey is convicted of his kidnapping on this date
1964 - Death of Sean O’Casey in England.

September 19
1757 - Having been funded by a bequest from Jonathan Swift, St Patrick's Hospital for the insane, Dublin, is opened
1889 - Seán Keating, painter, is born in Limerick
1880 - Parnell delivers his famous speech at Ennis in which he introduces the term for non-violent protest - boycotting. Parnell asked his audience, 'What are you to do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which another has been evicted?' Several voices replied, 'shoot him!' Parnell answered: "I wish to point out a better way, a more Christian way which will give the lost man an opportunity of repenting. When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must shun him on the roadside, on the streets, in the shop and even in the place of worship by putting him in a "moral Coventry." You must show him your detestation of the crime he has committed"
1881 - Kate Coll and Juan Vivion de Valera are married in St. Patrick’s Church, Greenville, New Jersey. Just over a year later the couple give birth to Éamon
1905 - Death of Dr. Thomas Barnardo. Dublin-born Barnardo opened his first home for destitute boys in Stepney in 1870
2000 - Aodhnait Fahy, Ireland's top student is given £30,000 to allow her to pursue the course of her dreams at Oxford University. She swept the board in this year's Leaving Cert with nine A1s - the highest ever result in the country
2000 - Fishermen all around the coast tie up their boats in protest at the £15 million hike in their fuel bill which, they claim, will put many of them out of business before Christmas.

September 20
1689 - The Enniskillen Protestants defeat Jacobite forces at Boyle, Co. Roscommon
1784 - Sir Richard Griffith, geologist and civil engineer, is born in Dublin
1803 - Robert Emmet, Irish patriot, is executed in Dublin. Emmet becomes a hero of Irish nationalists, largely on the basis of his stirring speech from the dock: "Let no man write my epitaph...When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph be written"
1847- Birth in Carron, Co. Clare of Michael Cusack, GAA founder
1911 - Anna Catherine Parnell, Irish patriot, dies
1918 - Republican newspapers are banned by English
1920 - Black and Tans raid Balbriggan, Co. Dublin
1920 - Kevin Barry is captured
1960 - Frederick H. Boland becomes president of the United Nations Assembly
1968 - Traffic wardens appear in Dublin for the first time.

September 21
1170 - MacMurrough and the Normans march on the Norse kingdom of Dublin, avoiding an Irish force that awaits them to the south of it. Dublin falls to them on this date. Some Norsemen, including the king of Dublin, Askulv, flee to the Hebrides or the Isle of Man
1601 - A Spanish army under Don Juan del Aguila lands at Kinsale
1703 - The first Irish parliament of Queen Anne is called; Alan Brodrick is unanimously elected Speaker
1728 - Philip Embury, founder of the American Methodist Church, is born in Ballingrane, Co. Limerick
1745 - The Jacobites are victorious at Prestonpans
1795 - 'Battle of the Diamond' between (Protestant) Peep o' Day Boys and (Catholic) Defenders near Loughgall, Co. Armagh leaves 30 Defenders dead and leads to the foundation of the Loyal Orange Institution (later the Orange Order) '...to defend the King and his heirs as long as they shall maintain the Protestant ascendancy'
1827 - Michael Corcoran, Union General, is born in Co. Donegal
1881- Revolutionary Éamonn Ceannt, is born in Glenamaddy, County Galway
1909 - Artist Tom Carr is born is Belfast
1932 - Birth of Mariga Guinness, née Princess Hermione Marie Gabrielle von Urach, Countess Württemberg; co-founder of Irish Georgian Society
1949 - The Republic of Ireland soccer team beats England 2-0 at Goodison Park - England’s first defeat by a foreign side
1981 - Death of author Christy Brown
1999 - Delegations from the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin meet at Stormont for their first direct talks in two months
1999 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledges support for Arafat and the Palestinians
2000 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern condemns the missile attack on the MI6 HQ in London
Photo Credit: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall/Ireland!
2000 - Gardaí arrest a man in connection with the bombing of Nelson’s Pillar in O’Connell Street, Dublin, 34 years ago
2001 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announces that Ireland will put its airports, airspace, refuelling facilities and garda intelligence at the disposal of the US in the battle against terrorism.

September 22
1601 - Battle of Kinsale
1626 - Charles I offers twenty-six concessions ("graces") to the Irish in return for subsidies to expand his army
1798 - Colonel Trench marches from Castlebar and takes Ballina
1821 - Patrick Moore, Confederate General, is born in Galway
1864 - Col. James Mulligan, who commanded "Mulligan's Irish Brigade," dies of wounds sustained at the 3rd Battle of Winchester
1884 - The gunboat HMS Wasp is wrecked off Tory Island, Co. Donegal, with the loss of 52 lives; there are eight survivors
1920 - Mid-Clare Brigade, IRA, kill six policemen near Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare
1928 - The first professional artist ever to appear on British television, Irishwoman Miss Peg O’Neil, gives "a charming entertainment, chatting and smiling, and telling Irish stories." The broadcast takes place at Olympia on the first day of the Radio Exhibition
1943 - Robert Ballagh, artist, is born in Dublin
1998 - RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan announces further reductions in the level of British troop patrols
1998 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pushes for a decommissioning timetable from the IRA
1999 - Ferry sailings resume following unofficial 24 hour strike action by SIPTU members which disrupted sailings out of Dublin and Rosslare, affecting almost 1,000 passengers
2001 - High-ranking British and Spanish diplomats join President McAleese and Britain's Prince Andrew to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Battle of Kinsale
2002 - David Trimble calls on all IRA members to quit the paramilitary organisation and join its political wing to save the Northern peace process.

September 23
1586 - At the battle of Ardnaree in Co. Mayo, Sir Richard Bingham, governor of Connacht, surprises a force of redshanks (Scottish mercenary light infantrymen) engaged by the Burkes of Mayo; 1,000 redshanks and 1,000 camp followers are killed. Bingham hangs the leaders of the Burkes
1641 - The Gaelic Catholics of Ulster stage an uprising against the Scottish Presbyterian planters
1798 - Second Battle of Killala. Final surrender of combined French and Irish forces to the English
1970 - Sir Arthur Young announces his resignation as chief constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
1992 - The IRA destroys Belfast's forensic science laboratory with a huge bomb
2001 - Kevin Boland, who resigned from the Fianna Fáil Government during the 1970 Arms Crisis, dies after a short illness. He was the son of Gerald Boland, a 1916 veteran, confidant of Eamon de Valera, and long-time FF government minister; his uncle was the celebrated War of Independence hero, Harry Boland
1999 - Bob Geldof, Bono and other members of an international lobby group meet with Pope John Paul II to discuss the cancellation of third world debt repayments
Photo credit: AP Photo/Arturo Mari
2002 - The Listowel Races in Co. Kerry begin. For the first year in its history, which dates to 1858, it will be a seven-day meeting.

September 24
1661 - Faithful Tadpole is admitted as a clerical vicar choral of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
1725 - Sir Arthur Guinness is born in Celbridge, Co. Kildare
1786 - Birth of Charles Bianconi, Irish passenger-car entrepreneur
1798 - United Irishman, Bartholomew Teeling, is hanged in Dublin
1801 - James Moore O'Donell, former MP for Ratoath, is killed in a duel with Major Denis Bingham in a feud over Co. Mayo politics
1880 - Mayo agent, Captain Charles Boycott, was sent to a 'moral Coventry.' He described his plight in a letter to The Times: "...people collect in crowds upon my farm and order off all my workmen. The shopkeepers have been warned to stop all supplies to my house. My farm is public property, I can get no workmen to do anything, and my ruin is openly avowed as the object of the Land League unless I throw up everything and leave the country"
1944 - Birth in Dublin of Eavan Boland, a poet who helped develop Arlen House, a feminist publishing company
1959 - Ireland's first Ban Garda recruit - woman police-officer - is introduced to RTÉ listeners
1998 - Garda Commissioner Pat Byrne admits that the Real IRA leaders who ordered the Omagh bombing will probably never be prosecuted
1998 - First Minister David Trimble and his deputy Séamus Mallon are divided over the set-up of the Assembly's power-sharing Executive
2000 - Boy band Westlife makes British pop history by becoming the first act to have six consecutive number one singles.

Sources: Irish Culture and Customs, The Celtic League, Irish Abroad, The Wild Geese.