Irish History - October 12 - 18

Here is your Irish history lesson for this week.

October 12
1645 - Archbishop Rinuccini arrives in Ireland
1671 - Peter Drake, soldier and memoir author, is born in Co. Meath
1798 - French fleet intercepted off Donegal. Wolfe Tone captured when the Hoche strikes its colors
1876 - Jerome Connor, sculptor, is born near Anascaul, Co. Kerry
1911 - Birth in Portrush of Fred Daly, the only Irishman to win a golf 'major' - the British Open in 1947
1938 - Birth in Co. Waterford of Brendan Bowyer, legendary singer with the Royal Showband
1945 - Emer Colleran, microbiologist and environmentalist, is born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo
1969 - Louis Gavan Duffy, Irish language educator, dies
1970 - Founding in Dublin of what is considered to be the first Celtic rock band, Horslips
1975 - Sir Oliver Plunkett is canonised
1999 - Former US Senator George Mitchell moves his make or break review of the Good Friday Agreement to London, just hours after new Secretary of State Peter Mandelson arrives in Northern Ireland to meet the North’s political leaders
2000 - Roman Catholic and Protestant Bishops are on a collision course following Archbishop Dr Desmond O’ Connell’s backing of the controversial document “Dominus Iesus” which proclaims the Catholic Church to be the one true church
2002 - Paddy's Bar, owned by Cork woman Natalia Daly, is destroyed in a series of explosions which kill more than 200 people in Bali. Most of those killed or injured are Australian tourists; the dead and injured also include Swiss, Germans, Swedes, Americans, Britons and Italians. Three Irish people are still unaccounted for.

October 13
1494 - Poynings lands at Howth and summons a parliament to Drogheda. He then campaigns in the north
1729 - William Conolly resigns as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons on grounds of ill health. Sir Ralph Gore is elected unanimously in his place
1823 - Sara Atkinson, a writer on religious and historical subjects is born
1881 - Charles Stewart Parnell and others are arrested for Land League activities
1923 - Republican prisoners in Mountjoy prison begin mass hunger strike
1928 - The Dublin Gate Theatre Company produces its first play - Ibsen's Peer Gynt - in the Peacock Theatre
1940 - Mick Doyle, rugby player and coach, is born in Castleisland, Co. Kerry
1998 - Farmers, furious over the collapse in cattle prices, stage an overnight sit-in protest at the Department of Agriculture and Food in Dublin and warn much tougher action will be taken
2000 - Provisional IRA gunmen are blamed for the murder of a leading member of the Continuity IRA, Joseph “Jo Jo” O’Connor who is shot dead in West Belfast
2002 - Three Irish tourists are among 25 people still unaccounted for following a massive bomb blast which ripped through two packed bars on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

October 14
1693 - The Earl of Tyrone dies and apparently appears promptly to Lady Nicola Hamilton, the widow of Tristram Beresford MP; he makes a number of predictions that turn out to be correct; one of them was that she would die on her 47th birthday
See our article A Triple Treat for Halloween
1702 - Irish Brigade of France fights in the battle of Friedlingen
1767 - George Townshend, 4th Viscount Townshend, becomes Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
1783 - Edmond Sexton Pery is unanimously re-elected as Speaker of the Irish parliament
1791 - Wolfe Tone visits Belfast for the first time; the Society of United Irishmen is founded there on this date by Tone, Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson
1814 - Birth of author and patriot, Thomas Osborne Davis in Mallow, Co. Cork
1880 - Nationalist and Gaelic League activist, Mary Ellen Spring-Rice is born
1882 - Eamon de Valera, nationalist campaigner, Fianna Fáil leader, Taoiseach and president of Ireland, is born in Brooklyn, New York of a Spanish father and an Irish mother
1920 - Tipperary IRA man, Sean Treacy, is killed in a gun battle in Talbot Street, Dublin
1932 - Between October 4 and this date, strikes, marches and protests are held in Belfast against low unemployment payments, temporarily uniting Catholic and Protestant unemployed; payments are raised
1998 - A 15th century painting of Pietro de Francesco Degli Orioli which is part of the Murnaghan collection goes up for auction in Dublin
1999 - More than 1,000 mourners gather in Belfast for the funeral of Patrick Campbell, a hard line republican paramilitary who was murdered in a drugs dispute
2000 - David Guiney, well known Irish sporting personality and journalist, dies in Dublin. Mr Guiney won an AAA title for the Shot Putt in 1948 and went on to compete for Ireland in the Olympic Games in London that year
2001 - The first multiple State funeral is held in honour of 10 IRA Volunteers, including Kevin Barry, who were executed for their role in the War of Independence. More than 80 years after they were buried in the grounds of Mountjoy Prison, the bodies of the 10 men were exhumed and reinterred in a special new plot at Glasnevin Cemetery. The ten men were Kevin Barry, Thomas Bryan, Patrick Doyle, Frank Flood, Patrick Moran, Thomas Whelan, Bernard Ryan, Thomas Traynor, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher.

October 15
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 Britain and Ireland till 1752
1690 - After taking Cork on 28 September, Marlbourough takes Kinsale for the Williamites, who now control Munster
1763 - Birth of United Irish leader, Lord Edward Fitzgerald at Carton House in Co. Kildare
1842 - First issue of "The Nation" published
1949 - Death of Eoin MacNeill, Irish historian and founder of the Irish Volunteers
1964 - UK general election; unionists win all 12 Northern Ireland seats; Harold Wilson forms a Labour government
1980 - Ronnie Bunting, Protestant Irish nationalist, is assassinated
1995 - Seamus Heaney wins the Nobel Peace Prize
1999 - The music world mourns the death in Co. Kildare of Derry-born tenor Josef Locke
2001 - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat asks Ireland to use its influence on the UN Security Council to help resume peace talks in the Middle East
2002 - Following the suspension of the Northern Ireland Government and Assembly, London resumes direct rule of Northern Ireland
2002 - The hero of the Polish Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, makes an impassioned plea to the Irish people to vote Yes to Nice.

October 16
1678 - Proclamations against Catholic clergy and schools in Ireland are issued
1827 - Cavan-born Thomas Baron von Brady, general in the Austrian army, dies in Vienna
1854 - Oscar Wilde, playwright, novelist and essayist is born in Dublin
1890 - Michael Collins is born in Clonakilty, Co. Cork
1961 - RTÉ reports on the closure of the West Clare Railway
Photo: From the County Clare Library
1961 - Opening of Cork Airport
1981 - Ben Dunne, joint managing director of Dunnes Stores, is kidnapped by the IRA
1998 - Taoiseach Bertie Ahern leads the applause for Nobel Peace Prize winners John Hume and David Trimble, describing it as a deserved tribute to two of the principal architects of the Good Friday Agreement.

October 17
1171 - Henry II, fearful that Strongbow will grow too powerful in Ireland, lands at Waterford with an army. The Normans, Norse and Irish all submit to him, except for the most remote Irish kings
1738 - In a duel at Mullingar, Arthur Rochfort, MP for Co. Westmeath, shoots Dillon Pollard Hampson in the stomach. Hampson, a former Junior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Irish Freemasons, recovers
1803 - Birth of Young Irelander, William Smith O'Brien in Dromoland, Co. Clare
1882 - The Irish Nationalist League is founded
1886 - John Dillon announces "Plan of Campaign" for Irish tenants against unfair rents
2000 - Ireland becomes the 30th country to pick up the TV show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"
2002 - Chieftains’ harpist Derek Bell dies unexpectedly during a recovery period from minor surgery in the United States.

October 18
1718 - Birth in Dublin of actress, Peg Woffington
1791 - First public meeting of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast
1881 - A “no rents manifesto” is issued by the Land League under the guidance of Parnell
1900 - Sarah Makem, Irish traditional singer, is born
1970 - Máirtin Ó Cadhain, Irish language writer and author of Cré na Cille, dies
2000 - More than 20,000 passengers are stranded as Aer Lingus grounds planes in the worst strike to hit the airline in 20 years
2001 - The five-star Aghadoe Heights Hotel in Killarney named AA Hotel of the Year.

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