Irish History - July 13 - July 19

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

July 13
1344 - Ralph de Ufford arrives in Ireland as justiciar with a small English army and investigates the situation in Cork
1809 - Founding of the Dublin Harp Society
1825 - The Catholic Association, dissolved in accordance with the Unlawful Societies Act on 9 March, is reconstituted on 13 July
1886 - Birth of Father Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boy's Town
1981 - Martin Hurson, Irish political prisoner, dies on hunger strike in the Maze Prison
1985 - The Live Aid concerts, organized by Bob Geldorf in aid of Ethiopian famine relief, are held in London and Philadelphia; the people of the Republic of Ireland contribute £8 million
1998 - The second stage of the Tour de France (taking place for the first time in Ireland) ends in Cork City. A crowd of between 40,000 and 50,000 turn out to see the history-making event.

July 14
1791 - Demonstrations are held in Dublin, Belfast and elsewhere to commemorate the fall of the Bastille in 1789
1798 - John and Henry Sheares are convicted of high treason and hanged in Dublin
1798 - Rebels are defeated at the Battle of Knightstown, Co. Louth
1908 - Birth of Roger McHugh, academic and writer, in Dublin
1969 - Rioting breaks out in Derry and Dungiven, resulting in the first death related to the Northern Ireland disturbances - a 70-year-old farmer who is struck in a melee outside an Orange Hall in Dungiven
1998 - Tánaiste Mary Harney announces that a minimum wage of £4.40 an hour will be introduced in April 2000
1999 - Fidelma Macken is nominated for the European Court of Justice - the first time a woman judge from any member country has reached such a high rank
1999 - Ulster Unionists reject peace blueprint
1999 - The Cabinet approves the construction of Ireland's first 50 metre swimming pool at the University of Limerick
1999 - Over 20,000 litres of fuel oil leaks into the popular fishing resort of Mucrós Bay, Co. Donegal from a supply tank at Abbotts Ireland
2000 - Angry fishermen blockade a State run fishery port as frustration and tension continues to increase over the alleged harassment of Irish tuna boats by the Naval Service
2000 - Kerry sheep farmer Patrick Morana earns a place in the Guinness Book of Records as he hand-shears 206 sheep in nine hours and becomes Irish and UK champion.

July 15
1865 - Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe; statesman, journalist and newspaper magnate, is born in Chapelizod, Co. Dublin
1871 - Birth of Gerald O'Donovan, priest and novelist, in Co. Down
1879 - Joseph Campbell, poet, is born in Belfast. He is famous for the English words he wrote to the song My Lagan Love
1899 - Sean Lemass is born in Dublin. He was the second leader of Fianna Fáil and third Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland from 1959 to 1966
1907 - Seumas Murphy, sculptor and stone-carver, is born in Mallow, Co. Cork
1927 - Countess Constance de Markievicz, Irish patriot, dies
1930 - After De Valera abolishes the oath of allegiance and withholds land annuities from the British Government, retaliatory trade legislation begins the 'economic war'
1942 - Brendan ('Paddy') Finucane from Dublin - the RAF's youngest ever Wing Commander at 21 years of age - is shot down and killed off the French coast
1987 - U2 plays its first-ever show in Madrid, Spain, attracting 115,000 people for one show, the largest crowd of the year
1998 - The Irish Nurses Organisation warns that the shortage of qualified nurses has reached crisis levels
1999 - It's revealed that since 1998, all telephone, e-mail and fax messages between Ireland and Britain, and probably the United States, were tapped by the British Government
1999 - The cream of Irish traditional and folk music turn out en masse for the inaugural Irish Music Magazine Awards in Dublin
2001 - More than 340,000 provisional licence drivers miss out on the new Driver Theory Test because test centres would not be able to handle the flood of applications
2002 - Tourism Minister John O'Donoghue, announces a new €3m marketing package for the industry.

July 16
1685 - Birth of Samuel Haliday in Omagh, Co. Tyrone. Minister of Belfast First Presbyterian Church in 1720, he refuses to sign the Westminster Confession, which leads to split between Subscribing and Non-Subscribing adherents
1803 - Following an explosion at his arms depot on this date, Robert Emmet brings forward his planned rebellion in Dublin to 23 July
1865 - James Owen Hannay (pseudonym George A. Birmingham; clergyman and writer) is born in Belfast
1929 - The Censorship of Publications Act is passed
1999 - Olympic champion Michelle de Bruin is stripped of her Irish swimming records; the triple gold medal winner at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta was banned for four years by the FINA in August of 1998 for tampering with a urine sample
2000 - The All Party Committee on the Constitution rejects total ban on abortion
2002 - The IRA leadership issues a statement which includes an apology for the killing of 'non-combatants.' Northern Ireland secretary, Dr John Reid, welcomes the gesture as one of unprecedented strength.

July 17
1221 - Geoffrey de Marisco, justiciar of Ireland, is accused of financial irregularities and resigns: he is replaced by Archbishop Henry of London on this date
1846 - Birth of Fenian, John McLure. He is one of 30 Fenian prisoners released in a general amnesty by the British government on January 5, 1871. They are released on condition that they exile themselves to the country of their choice and not return until their sentences have expired. Many choose to go to Australia, but John McClure, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, John Devoy, Henry Mulleda and Charles Underwood O'Connell, who had all been imprisoned together, decide to go to America and ship out from Liverpool on board the "Cuba." The so-called 'Cuba Five' arrive in New York to a hero's welcome and even receive a resolution of welcome from the US House of Representatives
1871 - Birth in Comber, Co. Down, of John Andrews, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1940 to 1943
1879 - Séamus O'Sullivan (James Sullivan Starkey),writer and editor, is born in Dublin
1884 - Louise Gavan Duffy, teacher and revolutionary, is born in Nice
1945 - Shannon Airport and customs free zone opened
1951 - Dublin's Abbey Theatre is destroyed by fire
1970 - The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland makes its debut
1998 - Salmonella food poisoning outbreaks in Wicklow and Donegal threaten the £10 million import industry in eggs from Northern Ireland
2000 - Guinness announces plans to lay off as many as 200 workers as part of a major cost-cutting strategy
2002 - New birth figures show that one in three children in Ireland are born out of wedlock.

July 18
1561 - Battle of Red Sagums - Shane O'Neill defeats English
1579 - James Fitzmaurice lands forces in Dingle with the intention of encouraging an uprising against England
1689 - The Mountjoy ship breaks the blockading boom and ends the Siege of Derry after 238 days
1794 - Feargus O'Connor, a leader of the Chartist movement, is born in Connorville, Co. Cork
1822 - The Theatre Royal in Dublin opens its doors to the public for the first time
1863 - Birth of Francis Erlington Ball, historian, in Portmarnock, Co. Dublin
1865 - Birth in Belfast of novelist Canon James Owen Hannay
1870 - Michael Davitt is sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude for gun-running
1874 - Cathal Brugha (Charles Burgess) an anti-Treaty nationalist,is born in Dublin
1920 - 19 people are killed in four days of sectarian violence in Derry/Londonderry
1951 - The Abbey Theatre in Dublin burns down. The play that evening closed with soldiers on stage singing, ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.
1966 - The rebuilt Abbey Theatre re-opens
1970 - After having been in prison for unlawful assembly and breach of peace, the "anti-popery" Reverend Ian Paisley is elected to Westminster
1999 - After a long illness, acclaimed actor Donal McCann dies in Dublin
1999 - Boyzone star Shane Lynch escapes unhurt from a dramatic 100 mph crash during a car rally
2000 - U2's official web site at U2.com is opened to the public
2000 - Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy faces heavy criticism over his handling of the economy as inflation soars
2000 - Former Supreme Court Judge Hugh O’Flaherty sells his Dublin home for almost £3 million.

July 19
1608 - Preparations commence for the plantation of six Ulster counties (Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine, Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone)
1735 - Garrett Wellesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, politician, musician, and father of Duke of Wellington, is born in Dublin
1785 - Richard Crosbie’s third attempt to cross the Irish Sea in a balloon is unsuccessful
1851 - William Wilson, astronomer and physicist, is born in Belfast
1982 - Dexy’s Midnight Runners reach No. 1 in the British charts with Come On Eileen
1994 - Eilis Dillon, novelist and author of Across the Bitter Sea, dies
1998 - Garvan McGinley, national organizer of the Progressive Democrat Party resigns
1998 - It is confirmed that three chaplains have quit the Orange Order and another dozen are considering their future in the wake of the Drumcree stand-off and the murders of the Quinn children in Ballymoney
1999 - Amnesty International honors its longest serving member in Ireland, Iris Bardon, with a presentation on her 100th birthday.

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