Irish History - Sept. 28 - Oct. 4

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

September 28
1678 - 'Popish plot' is alleged in England
1690 - Marlborough takes Cork for the Williamites
1703 - Francis Annesley is expelled from the Irish Commons for his part in The Report of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament into the Irish Forfeitures, printed in London, containing the paragraph: 'And indeed it does appear to us, that the Freeholders of this Kingdom, through length of time and by contracting new friendship with the Irish, or by inter-purchasing with one another, but chiefly through a general dislike of the disposition of the forfeitures, are scarce willing to find any person guilty of the late rebellion, even upon full evidence.' The House has found that Annesley 'scandalously and maliciously misrepresented and traduced the Protestant Freeholders of this Kingdom and thereby endeavoured to create a misunderstanding and jealousy between the people of England and the Protestants of this Kingdom'
1912 - Edward Carson, leader of Ulster Unionists, stages signing of "Southern League and Covenant" against Irish Home Rule
1920 - Cork No. 2 Brigade, IRA, attacks and captures a military barracks in Mallow, Co. Cork. English forces later burn and sack the town
1960 - RTÉ broadcasts a report on the re-opening of Bunratty Castle to the public after extensive refurbishing
1964 - Divis Street riots follow Ian Paisley's insistence that the RUC remove the Tricolour from a window at Sinn Féin’s Belfast headquarters
1978 - Pope John Paul I dies after just 33 days in office aged 65 - the shortest reign in the entire history of the Papacy
1987 - U2 is joined by the New Voices of Freedom choir onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York for a performance of "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
1998 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern vows to hand over all necessary papers to the Flood Tribunal investigation into alleged planning irregularities
1998 - The final strains of the Last Post symbolically close a 200-year-old military history in Fermoy and Ballincollig as the Tricolour is lowered and the troops leave the barracks. Both camps are closing and the soldiers are being transferred to Cork
1999 - The home of dual Olympian and arguably Ireland’s greatest ever athlete, the late Dr Pat O’Callaghan, is demolished in his adopted Clonmel to make way for a Rehab training facility
1999 - Larchill Arcadian Gardens in Co. Kildare win's the top prize in the ESB Community Environment Awards
2000 - The Ulster Unionist Party warns that it may withdraw from all North South bodies established under the Good Friday Agreement unless guarantees are forthcoming on IRA decommissioning, and policing
2000 - According to official figures, the number of mobile telephone connections in Ireland exceeds the fixed line total for the first time
2000 - A call for the IRA to be disbanded is made by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he reiterates the view that Fianna Fáil cannot go into government with Sinn Féin while that party remains linked to an armed force.

September 29
1155 - A proposal for the invasion of Ireland by Henry II is discussed at the Council of Winchester and rejected, though soon after, Henry obtains a papal privilege approving the invasion
1603 - Rory O'Donnell kisses the king's hand and is created Earl of Tyrconnell
1678 - Count Peter Lacy, soldier, governor of Livonia (Latvia) and field-marshal in the Russian army, is born in Killeedy, Co. Limerick
1732 - Birth of Sir Henry Cavendish, politician and master of shorthand, who recorded parliamentary debates
1778 - Birth in Dublin of Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy
1798 - Tandy and other Irish political prisoners in Hamburg are handed over to British authorities
1826 - Charles Cornwallis Chesney, professor of military history, is born in Kilkeel, Co. Down
1836 - Michael Mulhall, publisher and statistician, is born in Dublin
1854 - Birth in Kinvara, Co. Galway of Francis Arthur Fahy who wrote the song, Galway Bay
1898 - Fenian Thomas Clarke is released from Portland Prison
1905 - Francis Llewellyn Harrison, musicologist, is born in Dublin
1908 - Birth of film star Greer Garson in Co. Down
1929 - The last active Fenian, John Devoy, dies
1930 - George Bernard Shaw refuses a peerage
1972 - Kathleen Daly Clarke, Irish patriot, dies
1979 - Pope John Paul II arrives in Dublin for the first ever papal visit to Ireland
1999 - Smyth’s bar on Haddington Road in Dublin, is sold ‘virtually’ and otherwise in Ireland’s first Internet broadcast property auction
2002 - In Co. Wicklow, five paintings, including two by the renowned artist, Rubens, are stolen in another raid on Russborough House which has a history of art thefts.
In the liturgical calendar, today is the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel. Read our article Celebrating St. Michael's Day in Old Ireland.

September 30
1430 - A great council meets at Dublin on on this date; it states that Irish enemies and English rebels have conquered almost all of Limerick, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Wexford, Carlow, Kildare, Meath and Louth, so that hardly anything but Co. Dublin remains in the colony
1598 - The English poet Edmund Spenser is appointed Sheriff of Cork
1691 - The first recorded meeting of the Presbyterian general synod of Ulster is held at Antrim
1852 - Sir Charles Stanford, composer, is born in Dublin
1900 - Arthur Griffith forms Cumann na nGaedheal, which later becomes Sinn Féin
1949 - Birth of Finance Minister, Charlie McGreevy
1959 - World premiere of the Sean O’Riada’s film Mise Éire, at Cork Film Festival
1994 - Michael Flannery, Irish patriot, dies in New York City
1997 - U2 performs in Tel Aviv, Israel for the first time
1998 - Northern Secretary Mo Mowlam holds out the prospect of troops being removed permanently from the streets of the North if paramilitary groups hand in their weapons
1998 - Gerry Adams warns there must be no slippage in full implementation of the Good Friday settlement
1998 - The first appearance together of David Trimble and Séamus Mallon on a Labour platform draws an enormous and spontaneous ovation from the 3,000 delegates attending the party conference in Blackpool
1999 - The Rev. Ian Paisley meets with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the question of arson attacks on churches in the border area
2001 - Ireland assumes presidency of the United Nation's Security Council
2001 - Thousands of Irish, New Yorkers and Irish-Americans pay tribute to the many Irish people who died in the terrorist attacks. Bishop John Buckley of Cork celebrated the mass with the Bishop of Killaloe at the Roman Catholic Holy Trinity church in Manhattan.

October 1
1600 - Robert Grave, Church of Ireland Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, and his family drown in Dublin Bay on their way home to Wexford by sea
1796 - The Royal College of St. Patrick. a Catholic seminary, is opened in Maynooth, Co. Kildare
1751 - Cornelius Bolton, politician, Volunteer and improving landlord is born
1761 - In the climate of sectarian tension created partly by the Mathew-Maude controversy, the Whiteboys, a violent agrarian protest movement, begins in Tipperary and spreads through Munster and West Leinster
1911 - Statue of Charles Stewart Parnell is unveiled in Dublin
1930 - Actor Richard Harris is born in Limerick
1979 - RTÉ broadcasts Pope John Paul II's visit to Ireland
2000 - Eight men, including one Irishman, are feared dead after their fishing vessel sinks off the Clare coast in gale force winds and treacherous seas
2000 - President Mary McAleese leads the tributes to the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Luciano Storero, who died at 8am this morning in the Mater Hospital in Dublin at the age of 74
2001 - Journalists from all over Ireland gather to pay tribute to colleague Martin O'Hagan who was gunned down last week. More than 1,500 people attend his funeral in his hometown of Lurgan, County Armagh
2001 - The Black & White Pub of The Year Award 2001 goes to Fitzpatrick's Bar of Jenkinstown, Co Louth.

October 2
1600 - O'Neill engages Mountjoy's forces in the Battle of Moyry Pass
1833 - Birth of Father William Corby who became Chaplain of the Irish Brigade in Detroit, Michigan
1852 - William O'Brien, writer and nationalist, is born in Mallow, Co. Cork
1875 - Arthur Conway, mathematician and president of University College Dublin, is born in Wexford
1879 - Kate Coll arrives in New York from Ireland on board the SS Nevada. She later marries Juan Vivion de Valera, and gives birth to Éamon on October 14, 1882 in New York
1900 - Hubert Butler, writer and local historian, is born near Bennettsbridge, Co. Kilkenny
1942 - The British cruiser Curaçao sinks off Donegal after colliding with the Queen Mary; 338 lives are lost
1975 - Death of sculptor, Seamus Murphy
2001 - Máire Ní Chathasaigh, harpist and composer wins the TG4 Traditional Music Award 2001
2002 - In Málaga, Spain, a street is to be named after deceased Irish painter, George Campbell. Mr Campbell, from Arklow, Co Wicklow, died in 1979. He spent five months of every year of his last 27 years in Málaga
2002 - A 1.3 acre site at Railway Square in Waterford city is sold at auction for €4.9 million – over twice its guide price and a record for the region.

October 3
1691- Treaty of Limerick is signed by Ginkel and Sarsfield, ending the Williamite War in Ireland; the treaty allows evacuation of the Irish army to France and promises tolerance of Irish Catholics
1750 - James McLaine, gentleman highwayman born in Monaghan, is hanged at Tyburn
1871 - Gen. John O'Neill and a small force of Fenians invade Canada at Pembina, Manitoba
1943 - Richard Caborn, Sports Minister, is born
1961 - Ireland applies for membership of the European Economic Community on 1 August and joins UNESCO on this date
1966 - Birth of Niall Quinn, footballer
1971 - Death of Seán Ó Riada, founder, composer, and arranger for the Chieftains. He composed Mná na hÉireann (Women of Ireland). Guided by his vision, traditional music changed radically, and became accessible to a modern Irish audience, and through this traditional music, the cultural life of Ireland was invigorated. (taken from the book "Bringing It All Back Home" by Nuala O Connor)
1975 - Dr Tiede Herrema, chief executive of the Dutch-owned Ferenka factory in Ballyvarra, County Limerick, is kidnapped by the IRA
1981 - In the Maze Prison, Northern Ireland, ten IRA and INLA hunger-strikers die between 5 May and 12 August; the hunger strike is called off on this date
2000 - The death toll in storms that have raged for two days off the coast of Galway reaches 20
2002 - Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness condemns a weekend gun attack on a bus driver in his home city of Derry which police believe was the work of the IRA.

October 4
1582 - Pope Gregory reforms the calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45BCE: 4 October is followed by 15 October. However, the reform will not be implemented in Ireland till 1752
1693 - Irish Brigade of France fights in the battle of Marsaglia
1733 - Henry Boyle, the future Earl of Shannon, is unanimously elected Speaker of the Irish parliament. He will serve till 1756 - the longest-serving Speaker of the 1692-1800 parliaments
1741 - Edmund Malone, editor and Shakespearian scholar, is born in Dublin
1842 - Birth of heavyweight bare-knuckle boxer Jim Dunne in Co. Kildare.
Dunne won the American heavyweight title from fellow Irishman Jim Elliot - the pair were jailed after the illegal event
1886 - Lennox Robinson, playwright and one-time Abbey Theatre manager, is born in Douglas, Co. Cork
1959 - Direct dialing is launched in Ireland
1961 - General election is held in the Republic. Fianna Fáil gains 70 of the 144 seats
1999 - Aer Lingus announces it will drop its Knock Birmingham route. The decision by the national airline to cease operations on this route also means the severing of its only regular link with Knock Airport. A spokesperson for Aer Lingus confirms that the last flight on the Knock Birmingham route will be on October 29
2001 - Cork will be Europe's Culture Capital in 2005 after landing the prestigious title ahead of Galway
2002 - Thousands of people from all over the country march in protest over redundancy payments
2002 - The North's police service launch dawn raids on Sinn Féin's offices at the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont
In the liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of St. Francis. Traditionally, many people have their pets blessed in honor of the patron saint of all animals



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