Manchester Martyrs  ‘God save Ireland cried the heroes, God save Ireland say the all’ goes the popular Irish ballad song, which has its origins in an event which occurred in Manchester, England 152 years ago. The execution of William Allen, Michael O’Brien and Michael Larkin, who became known as the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, quickly became part of Irish Nationalist folklore. On 18 September 1867 about 50 Irish Fenia...

On the morning of the 21 November 1920 Michael Collins sent out his team of assassins, known as the ‘Squad’ to take out the British intelligence network in Dublin. The murder of 12 members of what was known as the ‘Cario gang’ and two police officers provoked an immediate and savage reprisal from the British military in Dublin. Making their way to Croke Park, where Dublin and Tipperary were playing a football challe...

Irish Brigade to fight for General Franco in Spain In August 1936 General Eoin O’Duffy, the former Garda commissioner and leader of the Blueshirts, announced the formation of an Irish Brigade to fight for General Franco in Spain where a Civil War had broken out. O’Duffy claimed he was motivated by the historic links between Ireland and Spain, anti-communism and the need to defend the Catholic Church. The Spanish Civil W...

19.November.1978 Theobald Wolfe Tone When news of the outbreak of the United Irish rebellion in May 1798 reached the then exiled Wolfe Tone he once again set in motion plans for a French invasion of Ireland. Devastated and embarrassed by the failure of almost 15,000 French troops to land at Bantry Bay in 1796, Tone managed to secure a much smaller force to embark on an invasion two years later. On 16 September, Tone sailed wi...

16 November 1920 Massacre at Killaloe Bridge On the 16 November 1920 one of the most notorious incidents in the Irish War of Independence occurred in the village of Killaloe, County Clare close to the Tipperary border. After an earlier attack on Scariff R.I.C. Barracks, the Auxiliaries began to search for IRA suspects but met with little success. Then on 16 November a Board of Works steamer, The Shannon, sailed into Wil...

15 November 1985 Anglo Irish Agreement signed Thirty-four years ago today a political crisis, much like the present day, loomed large in Irish society. On 15 November 1985 at Hillsborough Castle, County Down the Anglo-Irish Agreement was singed by Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The framework it was hoped would help to end the northern torubles, then entering a sixteenth year and ...

14 November 1923 William Butler Yeats Wins Nobel Peace Prize On 14 November 1923 Irish poet and senator, William Butler Yeats created history when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irish citizen to achieve such an accolade. The prize was awarded to Yeats ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’. Somewhat surprised by the awa...

14 November 1923 William Butler Yeats Wins Nobel Peace Prize On 14 November 1923 Irish poet and senator, William Butler Yeats created history when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irish citizen to achieve such an accolade. The prize was awarded to Yeats ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’. Somewhat surprised by the awa...

14 November 1923 William Butler Yeats Wins Nobel Peace Prize On 14 November 1923 Irish poet and senator, William Butler Yeats created history when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Irish citizen to achieve such an accolade. The prize was awarded to Yeats ‘for his always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation’. Somewhat surprised by the awa...

One hundred years ago today towns and villages all across Ireland marked the first anniversary of the Armistice or the end of the First World War in November 1918. It is interesting now looking back at the enthusiasm which existed for these armistice events, illustrating that although the War of Independence had begun in January 1919, public opinion had not yet changed. On the previous day, the 10th November, the Evening Her...