Irish History - September 14 - 20

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

September 14
1607 - Hugh O'Neill, Ruari O'Donnell and other chiefs of their families depart Lough Swilly for the continent in what has become known as the 'Flight of the Earls"
1647 - Lord Inchiquin, a royalist turned Parliamentarian, sacks the Irish Catholic Confederate garrison at the Rock of Cashel
1752 - The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Ireland and Britain, 170 years after mainland Europe: 2 September is followed by 14 September. There are protests and riots by people who are convinced that they have lost 12 days out of their lives
1824 - Sir Frederick Falkiner, impoverished former MP for Athy, Co. Dublin and Co. Carlow commits suicide in Naples
1852 - Death of Arthur Wellesley, alias the Duke of Wellington. The Dublin born soldier served as MP for Meath before eventually becoming Prime Minister of Britain
1886 - Birth of author Alice Milligan
1907 - Edel Quinn, promoter of Legion of Mary in Africa, is born near Kanturk, Co. Cork
1955 - Dr. Kathleen Lynn, Irish Citizen Army officer, dies
1971 - Ian Paisley founds the Democratic Unionist Party
1982 - Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, dies in a car crash
1994 - At a London auction, Bono pays $53,400 for Charlie Chaplin's costume from The Great Dictator
1998 - Sinn Fein is warned by First Minister, David Trimble, that it could not take up seats in the new Northern Ireland Assembly's ruling executive until the IRA's vast armoury of weapons are decommissioned
1999 - Clonfert Cathedral which ranks in importance with the Great Pyramids and dates back to the 12th century, joins the millennium list of the 100 Most Endangered Monuments. The list is compiled by The New York Times and in the past has included such famous landmarks as the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru and the Aztec site of Teotihuacan in Mexico City
1999 - UFF "godfather" Johnny Mad Dog Adair is released from the Maze Prison
1999 - The Pro-Agreement parties resume talks with former US Senator George Mitchell during the second week of his review of the Good Friday Agreement
1999 - Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern begins his official visit to Russia
2000 - Roy Keane, Pauline McLynn and Samantha Mumba are among the stars who are honoured at the Millennium Irish Post Awards held at the Millennium Brittania Hotel in Grosvenor Square
2001 - Following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, as many as 15,000 Irish people are stranded in the US and Canada awaiting flights to Ireland
2001 - The Irish government declares a national day of mourning; schools, businesses and shops are shut down in an unprecedented gesture of sympathy following Tuesday's attack on the World Trade Center.

September 15
1851 - Sir William Whitla, physician and professor, is born in Co. Monaghan
1865 - Police raid and close the Irish People offices; Rossa, Luby and O'Leary are arrested
1866 - John Blake Dillon, Young Irelander and co-founder of The Nation, dies in Killarney
1881 - First soccer international in Ireland; England beats the Irish squad Total crowd receipts: £9.19s.7d
1889 - Birth in Castlebar of singer Margaret Burke Sheridan
1905 - Pat O'Callaghan, physician, hammer-thrower and first man to win an Olympic gold medal while representing Ireland, is born near Kanturk, Co. Cork
1976 - Anne Letitia Dickson is elected leader of the Unionist Party of Northern ireland, becoming the first woman to lead a political party in Ireland
1997 - Sinn Fein joins multiparty peace talks in Northern Ireland
1999 - The Corrs, the Cranberries and the Chieftains take the lion’s share of £15.6 million collected by the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) on behalf of Irish song writers
2000 - Sonia O'Sullivan leads the Irish team at a spectacular Olympic opening ceremony in Sydney, Australia
2001 - Aer Lingus, Delta and Continental Airlines resume services to and from Ireland. The first trans-Atlantic flights to the US leave for New York, Newark, Chicago and Washington. Priority status is given to all relatives of the victims and injured in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

September 16
1732 - Birth in Castletown, Co. Clare of Thomas O'Gorman, physician, wine trader and courtier in France; made a chevalier by Louis XV
1798 - Small French force under James Napper Tandy makes brief landing on Rutland Island, Co. Donegal
1798 - Belfast United Irish leaders arrested
1808 - William Trench, land agent and author, is born near Portarlington, Co. Laois
1830 - Birth in Leighlinbridge, Co. Carlow of Patrick Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, first Australian cardinal, and church historian
1845 - Death of Thomas Davis, revolutionary, poet, and political theorist
1865 - Fenian newspaper, Irish People, ceases publication
1870 - Birth in Dublin of John Pius Boland, nationalist politician and Ireland's first Olympic gold medalist
1906 - Trevor G. McVeagh, cricket, hockey, squash and tennis player, is born in Athboy, Co. Meath
1925 - Charles Haughey, Fianna Fáil leader and Taoiseach, is born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo
1934 - Singer, guitarist and founder of the Dubliners, Ronnie Drew, is born in Dublin
1941 - Sixteen soldiers are killed in the Glen of Imaal, Co. Wicklow, while testing mines
1945 - World renowned Irish tenor, John McCormack, dies in Athlone
1998 - Irish-owned Musgrave Group becomes the biggest food distribution company in the country after signing an historic franchise deal with supermarket chain Roches Stores
1998 - Books of condolences opened in the aftermath of the Omagh tragedy are closed. More than 150,000 people from across Northern Ireland are estimated to have signed the books.

September 17
1711 - John Holwell, surgeon and survivor of 'Black Hole of Calcutta' is born in Dublin
1798 - 3000 French troops depart for Ireland from Brest
1903 - Frank O'Connor, (pseudonym of Michael O'Donovan), short-story writer and author of poetic translations from Irish is born in Cork
1920 - Birth of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel, born in Belfast and educated in Dublin
1930 - The Free State is elected to the council of the League of Nations
1937 - Ten young men, potato-pickers from Achill Island, die when a bothy catches fire on a farm at Kirkintilloch, Scotland
1976 - The founders of the Peace Movement, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams, are awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace
1999 - Interest rates for thousands of home owners tumble as the mortgage war escalates
2003 - Mrs Harriet O'Donovan Sheehy unveils the new stamp of her late husband Frank O'Connor at St Patrick's National School, Gardiner's Hill, Cork.

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.

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