Irish History - Aug. 10 - Aug. 16

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

August 10
1316 - Battle of Athenry. Irish rising in support of Edward Bruce of Scotland
1636 - The Annals of the Four Masters is completed
1719 - The House of Commons proposes that all unregistered priests in Ireland should be branded on the cheek. The plan is ultimately abandoned.
1854 - A statutory provision is made for the establishment of a national gallery of paintings, sculpture and fine arts in Ireland
1857 - Death of John Wilson Croker, Galway-born politician and writer
1890 - Death of journalist and republican John Boyle O’Reilly
1848 - Birth in Clonakilty of William Hartnett, master of still life painting
1886 - Death of Joseph Medlicott Scriven from Seapatrick, Co. Down, who wrote the words for What A Friend We Have In Jesus
1920 - Death of actor James O’Neill, in Kilkenny. Remembered for his portrayal of the Count of Monte Cristo, he was also the father of playwright Eugene O’Neill
1928 - Peter Barry, Fine Gael politician, is born in Co. Cork
1971 - Birth in Co. Cork of soccer star Roy Maurice Keane, the "human dynamo"
1975 - Death of Robert Barton, last of the surviving 1921 Treaty signatories
1984 - John Treacy wins a silver medal in the marathon at the LA Olympics
1998 - Car clamping of illegally parked cars is introduced in Dublin
1998 - After 26 years on the air, Gay Byrne confirms he will quit his RTÉ morning radio programme at Christmas and will give up the Late Late Show next June
1998 - After serving 21 years, William Moore, the last member of the terrifying Shankill Butchers Gang to remain behind bars is released, despite a Judge's recommendation that he should never go free. He was given 14 life sentences for his role in the abduction and murder of 19 innocent Catholics
1999 - Lakes featured in The Quiet Man are put on the market
2000 - Ruth-Kelly Walsh from Bray, Co. Wicklow wins the special prize for the 'Most Creative Hat' in the RDS Ladies Day Competition at the Kerrygold Horse Show.

August 11
1691 - A Jacobite force under Patrick Sarsfield, guided by Galloping Hogan, destroys a Williamite siege train at Ballyneety, hampering the siege of Limerick
1835 - Henry Grattan Guinness, is born in Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
1894 - Dan Breen, nationalist revolutionary and politician, is born near Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary
1927 - After the Free State general election on June 9, de Valera and Fianna Fáil enter the Dáil as the largest opposition party; the Cosgrave administration brings the Farmers' Party into government (independent Ireland's first coalition government, though not so called)
1927 - The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) is established to control the Shannon hydro-electric scheme and take over all existing projects for the electrification of Ireland
1979 - Disaster overtakes the Fastnet Challenge yacht race when the biggest-ever fleet of 303 vessels is caught in a vicious storm. Seventeen people lose their lives
1998 - Fine Gael warns that many farmers who are at the mercy of the worst harvesting weather for 20 years will have no incomes by Christmas unless the Government adopts a strategy to help them out
1999 - Last almost-total solar eclipse of the century takes place in Western Europe. Cloud cover in many parts of Ireland spoils the view, but hundreds in Croke Park, Dublin watch the phenomenon under cloudless, blue skies
2000 - Hugh O'Flaherty's nomination to the European Investment Bank may be in jeopardy after the bank confirms it has the power to recommend someone else for the job
2000 - The Royal Ulster Constabulary welcomes deal which will allow a low-key policing operation for a loyalist march at the weekend in Derry.
2003 - Model plane goes transatlantic after "The Spirit of Butts Farm" - named after its testing site - lands safely in County Galway, Ireland, 38 hours after it took off from Canada. The balsa wood and mylar plane flies 3,039 kilometres (1,888 miles). US, Canadian and Irish engineers work together using satellite navigation and an autopilot system overseen by engineers and radio operators using laptop computers.

August 12
1646 - Archbishop Giovanni Rinuccini, papal nuncio to the Irish Confederate Catholics, condemns their adherence to Ormond's peace terms for failing to fully recognize Catholicism
1652 - 'Act for the Settling of Ireland' allows for the transplantation to Clare or Connacht of proprietors whose land is confiscated by Cromwell to meet promises to adventurers and soldiers; also known as the "To Hell or Connacht" Act
1796 - Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin receives its first prisoners
1804 - Birth of James Whiteside, orator and Lord Chief Justice, in Delgany, Co. Wicklow
1821 - George IV begins his visit to Ireland; he is received enthusiastically by O'Connell and others
1822 - Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, commits suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife
1870 - Sir Hubert Gough, soldier and participant in 'Curragh mutiny' of 1914, is born in Gurteen, Co. Waterford
1898 - Irish Local Government Act sets up elective county and district councils
1899 - First issue of James Connolly's Workers Republic
1914 - Death of John Holland, from Liscannor, Co. Clare, designer of the first submarine
1920 - Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested by British; he immediately goes on hunger strike
1922 - Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage
1969 - British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland after riots in Derry and Belfast
1998 - Freak twister ravages Martinstown in Co. Antrim; no injuries or fatalities are reported
1999 - Memorial service is held for the victims of the Omagh bomb attack
2001 - Playing to a capacity crowd at the Manchester Evening News Arena, U2 kicks off their European tour with a plea for peace in Northern Ireland
2001 - Loyalist protesters block a main road in north Belfast to prevent the republican Wolf Tone flute band from joining a major march commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1981 IRA hunger strikes.

August 13
1689 - The Duke of Schomberg lands at Groomsport with his 10,000 strong Williamite army
1819 - Birth of Sir George Gabriel Stokes, mathematician and physicist, in Skreen, Co. Sligo
1846 - Birth of Otto Jaffe in Hamburg. Otto was the first non-Protestant to hold the office of Lord Mayor of Belfast — he was Jewish
1881 - First issue of United Ireland, Parnellite weekly
1887 - Special committee appointed to investigate Parnell's ties to Phoenix Park murders
1898 - The first issue of Workers’ Republic
1947 - The Health Act extends the powers of county councils and provides maternity care
1974 - Kate O'Brien, Irish writer, dies
1999 - A new set of 30p stamps is issued by An Post to honour the Gaelic Football team of the Millennium. It depicts the members of the An Post-GAA official Gaelic Football Team of the Millennium as chosen by a panel of experts
2000 - The RUC promises an increased profile at sectarian flashpoints in Belfast after a large scale attack on Catholic houses further heightens tensions.
In the liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of St. Muredach.

August 14
1598 - High O'Neill defeats the English at the Battle of Yellow Ford
1778 - Gardiner's Catholic Relief Act is enacted and grants rights of leasing and inheritance to those who have taken the oath of allegiance: the first rolling back of the penal laws
1784 - Nathaniel Hone, painter and member of the Royal Academy at the time of its founding in 1768, dies
1814 - Mary O'Connell is born in Co. Limerick. Known as Sister Anthony, she serves in the American Civil War as a nurse
1850 - The Irish Franchise Act is enacted and has the effect of increasing the electorate from 45,000 to 164,000
1903 - The Land Purchase Act (Wyndham Act) is enacted and allows for entire estates to be purchased by the occupying tenantry, subsidized by the state
1907 - H. Montgomery Hyde, author and unionist MP, is born in Belfast
1968 - Golfer Darren Clark is born in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone
1969 - First deployment of British troops in Northern Ireland
1992 - Boxer Michael Carruth wins an Olympic Gold medal in Barcelona
1998 - The Family Mediation Service, which enables separating couples to reach agreement on a range of issues relating to their break-up, is to be expanded nationwide
1998 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledges that the Stormont Agreement relating to the release of prisoners convicted of killing gardaí has to be honoured by the Government
1998 - "The Sovereign Nation", a publication of the 32-County Sovereignty Movement is launched in Dundalk
2000 - The Irish Locomotive Driver's Association rejects a bid to end the two-month-old rail dispute
2001 - Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid strongly criticizes the IRA after they withdraw a plan to put their weapons beyond use
2002 - Emer McGrath from Ballynew in Ballinrobe on the Mayo/Galway border becomes the country’s top student with eight Leaving Certificate A1s and one A2.

August 15
1649 - Oliver Cromwell arrives in Ireland as Commander-in-Chief and Lord Lieutenant with an army of 20,000, a huge artillery train and a large navy
1715 - On this date, Frederick Hamilton, former MP for Donegal, writes to George I that although the county is well affected, 'The great scarcity of armes in ye country is beyond anything I could have imagin'd till about three days ago that I had occasion to send some men after seven Tories that were hunted out of Fermanagh, & in the barony of Kilmakrenan, I could not get thirty men tolerably armed tho' I believe the country will be able to array seven thousand men'
1755 - Molesworth Phillips, sailor and companion of Captain James Cook, is born in Swords, Co. Dublin
1803 - Edmund Rice opens a school for poor boys in Waterford - precursor of the schools run by the Christian Brothers
1843 - Daniel O'Connell holds meetings for Repeal of the Union, attended by hundreds of thousands, at Trim and the Hill of Tara
1880 - Five people drown in Derrybeg, Co. Donegal when a chapel is flooded during Mass
1882 - Unveiling of O’Connell monument in Dublin
1919 - Birth of Benedict Kiely, novelist, short story-writer and critic, in Dromore, Co. Down
1917 - Birth of Jack Lynch, Taoiseach, in Co. Cork
1998 - Massive bomb explodes in Omagh shopping center; 29 people are killed and hundreds injured
1999 - The Portmarnock Hotel in Dublin wins the Powers World Irish Coffee Making Championship for the second successive year
1999 - Mobs in Derry attack police, loot businesses and torch buildings
1999 - Founder member of the SDLP, Paddy Devlin, dies in Belfast’s Mater Hospital after a long illness.
In the liturgical calendar, today is the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It is also the feast day of St. Daga, 6th century Bishop of Iniskin, Dundalk.

August 16
1793 - The Convention Act bans representative bodies set up to campaign for a change in the law, i.e. putative rivals to the parliament
832 - An Act is passed which allows for tithe payments to be commuted
1878 - The Intermediate Education Act grants female students the right to participate in public examinations and to enter into careers and professions
1879 - National Land League of Mayo is founded 1882 - Charles Stewart Parnell becomes a Freeman of the city of Dublin
1892 - National Literary Society is founded
1920 - Court-martial of Terence MacSwiney, Irish Volunteer and Lord Mayor of Cork 1921 - The first Dáil Éireann is dissolved and the second Dáil convenes
1981 - U2 plays its first show ever at Slane Castle outside Dublin, and its only Irish show of the year
1982 - Malcolm McArthur, who is wanted for the murder of a nurse named Bridie Gargan, is found in the flat of the Attorney General, Patrick Connolly; Mr Connolly resigns on this date 1995 - More than 100 people are evacuated from The Kitchen, the basement nightclub below the Clarence Hotel in Dublin after a fire is spotted on the roof. No injuries or fatalities are reported
1997 - On the 20th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, U2's PopMart show in Vienna, Austria is filled with tributes and references to the King
2001 - Dozens of wild birds, including swans, mallard and moorhens are rounded up by animal welfare workers after a major oil spill in the River Liffey at Palmerstown in Co. Dublin.

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