Irish History - Jan. 6 - Jan. 12

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

January 6
1562 - Shane O'Neill submits to Queen Elizabeth at Whitehall, but rebels again within months
1654 - Commissioners are appointed to allot the land of Oliver Cromwell's Connacht plantation to transplanted Irish
1794 - Frances Ball who, as Mother Mary Teresa founded the Sisters of Loretto, is born in Dublin
1800 - Author Anna Maria Hall, née Fielding, is born in Dublin
1839 - On this date, the Night Of The Big Wind or Oiche na Gaoithe Moire takes place; the most damaging storm in Irish history, some winds are estimated in excess of 130 m.p.h
1898 - Colonel James Fitzmaurice, Ireland's greatest aviator, is born in Dublin
1931 - Birth of novelist P.J. Kavanagh
1939 - First publication of the newspaper Irish Freedom
1940 - Johnny Giles, footballer and Republic of Ireland manager, is born in Dublin
1941 - Birth of Noel Pearson, theatre impresario and film producer
1998 - Embattled Northern Ireland Secretary of State Mo Mowlam receives the full backing of SDLP leader John Hume in her efforts to maintain the faltering peace process
2000 - Residents in counties in the west and midlands, coping with the effects of the most devastating floods to have hit the region in fifty years, brace themselves for another rainstorm
2000 - Families from all over Ireland join President Mary McAleese and her family in A´ras an Uachtaráin in Dublin to celebrate the feast of the Holy Family. Bay laurels from Bethlehem are planted to mark the 2000th anniversary since the birth of Christ
2003 - According to a study published today, the Irish language is on the brink of extinction unless radical measures are taken to arrest its decline
2003 - Farmers put 1,000 tractors on the country’s roads and head for Dublin at the start of the IFA’s five-day family farm survival campaign.
2003 - The campaign against the construction of a motorway near the ruins of Carrickmines Castle in South Dublin is stepped up as protesters re-erect a blockade to prevent large diggers moving onto the site.
In the liturgical calendar, today is Epiphany and the Feast of the Holy Family.

January 7
1878 - General John O'Neill, Fenian leader, dies
1899 - Elizabeth Bowen, novelist and short story writer, is born
1922 - Dáil Éireann votes 64 to 57 to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty, creating the Irish Free State
2000 - Experts underline the important heritage value of a 19th Century relic that stands on the site of a disused copper mine. A conservation appeal is to be launched to safeguard a unique engine house at a mountain mine in the Beara peninsula. A rare surviving symbol of Cornish type mining technology, the structure is the primary surviving embodiment of a once thriving coppermining industry in Allihies, Co. Cork
2001 - Irish soil is sprinkled over the casket of Sister Theresa Egan as more than 2,000 mourners attend her funeral in St Lucia. The nun was brutally murdered while attending Mass last week
2003 - Gardaí adopt a zero tolerance-type approach to speeding after it emerges almost half of motorists in Dublin are still breaking the law in built-up areas.

January 8
1547 - Henry VIII suppresses the Chapter of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin; it will not be restored until 15 June 1555
1860 - The Church of St Andrew in Suffolk Street, Dublin, is destroyed by fire
1871 - James Craig, Ist Viscount Craigavon, Unionist politician and PM of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1940, is born in Belfast
1873 - Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain is founded
1876 - Lucien Bul, inventor of the electrocardiograph, is born in Dublin
1916 - Evacuation of Gallipoli Peninsula in the Dardanelles is completed; there are100,000 casualties, mostly Australian, New Zealanders and Irish, in the eight-month campaign
1922 - Arthur Griffin is elected second president of Ireland by Dáil Éireann
1979 - An oil tanker explodes at Whiddy Island oil terminal on Bantry Bay, Cork, killing at least 50 people
1998 - The first licensed drug to treat mild to moderately severe Alzheimer's disease is launched in Ireland
1999 - French, Irish, English and Dutch relatives gather at the hilltop granite memorial sculpture in Bantry's Abbey Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony in memory of those who perished when the oil tanker Betelgeuse blew up at the Whiddy Island oil terminal
1999 - The British Government comes under pressure to stop the early release of prisoners in Northern Ireland after an upsurge in paramilitary shootings and beatings
2000 - Thousands of acres are still flooded, roads blocked and farmyards remain under water after the River Shannon bursts its banks
2001 - All schools are to receive a CD ROM of one of the masterpieces of Western art — the Book of Kells. On behalf of the schools, the Minister for Education and Science, Dr Michael Woods, accepts the CD ROMs from Trinity College Library in Dublin and leading internet company, X Communications
2002 - Thousands of commuters experience delays after fallen cables knock out DART services at some of Dublin's busiest stations
2002 - Former Soviet leader Gorbachev sinks a pint of Guinness with Dublin Lord Mayor Michael Mulcahy in the famous Doheny and Nesbitt pub in Baggot Street.
2007 - Northern ireland’s Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine dies at age 53 after suffering a heart attack and later a stroke and a brain haemorrhage. A former UVF prisoner and a key figure in brokering the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire of 1994, a party statement is quoted as saying: "Unionism has lost the most progressive voice of this generation. Politics has lost a statesman. Our peace process has lost its most optimistic advocate and Ulster has lost a devoted son.”

January 9
1642 - 30 Catholics are killed by the Scottish garrison and English settlers at Island Magee, Co. Antrim
1873 - John J. Flanagan, hammer-thrower and shot-putter, is born in Kilbreedy, Co. Limerick
1900 - Birth of Harry Kernoff in London, artist; resident of Dublin from the time he was 14 years old
1904 - George Buchanan, poet, novelist and journalist, is born in Kilwaughter, Co. Down
1922 - Arthur Griffith is elected Taoiseach of Dáil Éireann after Eamon de Valera steps down
1929 - Brian Friel, playwright and author of Dancing at Lughnasa, is born near Omagh, Co. Tyrone
1951 - The Northern and Southern governments agree on the running of the Great Northern Railway
1952 - Birth of Danny Morrison, former publicity officer for Sinn Féin, and now a novelist
1962 - Birth of Ray Houghton, footballer
1998 - Mo Mowlam, risks her political future in talks with loyalist paramilitaries inside the Maze prison in a desperate bid to save the troubled Northern Ireland peace process
2000 - Boy band Westlife retains their place at the top of the charts to become the first act in more than a year to hang on at number one for longer than three weeks
2001 - For the first time ever, electric power comes to the tiny islands of Inishgort and Inishlyre in Clew Bay
2002 - Former soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, accepts the honour of being named the 71st Freeman of Dublin, following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela and members of U2
2002 - Police are attacked with bricks and bombs by rioters from both sides of the sectarian divide, as bigotry and violence flare again at the Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, north Belfast.

January 10
1751 - Cornelius Bolton, politician, Volunteer and improving landlord is born
1814 - Aubrey Thomas De Vere, a poet who adapted early Gaelic tales, is born
1922 - Arthur Griffith elected President of Irish Free State
1952 - An Aer Lingus aeroplane, the St Kevin, crashes in Wales with the loss of 23 lives. It is the airline's second fatal crash
1969 - Civil rights leaders in Northern Ireland defying police orders and refuse to abandon their planned march through Newry in Co. Down
2000 - The Lodge and Spa at Inchydoney Island, Clonakilty, County Cork, is the AA Hotel of the Year
2002 - A new chapter in Irish literary history is written with the publication of The Last Tango in Ibiza, which was penned by first-time authors who include a nun and several grannies
2003 - Farmers drive 300 tractors into the city and hold a two-hour rally in front of Government Buildings at Merrion Square
2003 - Feared loyalist paramilitary chief Johnny Mad Dog Adair is arrested and sent back to jail. Adair will not now be released from prison until January 2005

January 11
1836 - George Sigerson, physician, professor and writer, is born near Strabane, Co. Tyrone
1921 - The British government announces that any unauthorised person found in possession of arms, ammunition or explosives is liable to be executed
1925 - Birth of David Wylie Bleakley, writer and Northern Ireland Labour Party politician
1970 - IRA splits into Officials and Provisionals (Provos)
1972 - Padraic Colum, Longford poet and playwright, dies
1998 - The Government plays down reports of a rift between Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
1999 - The Democratic Unionist Party warns that it would mount a legal challenge if Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam moves to announce a power-sharing Executive without the Assembly approving the new government structures
2000 - Furious farmers block the entrances to all the main meat processing plants in protest against the imposition of increased veterinary inspection charges
2002 - The country's population is set for another dramatic increase after Ireland records the highest birth rate and lowest death rate of all 15 EU member states in 2001.

January 12
1709 - Birth of Benjamin Burton, politician and Revenue Commissioner
1729 - Edmund Burke, orator, statesman and philosopher, is born in Arran Quay, Dublin
1765 - The Kinsale by-election caused by the death of John Folliott on this date is contested by Agmondisham Vesey and Richard Meade. Vesey wins by 64 votes to 48, but pays a price for being elected: William Dennis, vintner, receives £80 for Mr Vesey's entertainment. Three other innkeepers receive a total of £76 3s 6d for providing 'drink for Mr Vesey's health' and a further £14 9s for beer to the populace. His election agent, James Dennis, spends £46 12s 2d to send a coach and post-chaise to Dublin to collect voters. Vesey spends a further £12 7s 10d on 'a notice to disqualify John O'Grady as a Papist from voting'. Ben Hayes, fiddler, is paid £5 13s 9d. Vesey's election breakages bill amounts to £7 8s, exclusive of fines for 'a crowd of broke heads and crakt limbs'. James Kearney (a future MP for Kinsale) spends £16 4s 3d to bring voters to Kinsale on Vesey's behalf: this includes a post-chaise and hospitality on the four-day journey
1885 - Thomas Ashe, patriot and nationalist revolutionary, is born in Lispole, Co. Kerry
1887 - Molly Allgood, actress (stage name Máire O'Neill) and fiancée of Synge, is born in Dublin
1930 - Birth of Jennifer Johnston, author of How Many Miles to Babylon and The Railway Station Man
1947 - Matt Molloy of the Chieftains is born
1947 - Micheal O'Siadhail, poet and linguist, is born in Dublin
1951 - Birth of Steve Travers, surviving member of the Miami Showband massacre, and managing director of CAT Entertainments
1993 - A Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition government is formed, with Reynolds as Taoiseach
1998 - Political master strokes by Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair breath new life into the Northern peace process with a blueprint for peace which could replace the Anglo-Irish Agreement with a three-stranded government for the North
2000 - Despite the controversy over the book, Limerick people turnout in huge numbers to attend the sell out film premiere of Angela’s Ashes.



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