The island of Grosse Île lies 30 miles downstream of Quebec City in the St. Lawrence River. Once a quarantine station for ships bringing immigrants to the Canadas from Europe, mid-nineteenth-century outbreaks of cholera and typhus led to several thousand Irish deaths aboard ships in quarantine and on Grosse Île itself. This trauma has lived on in the Irish diaspora’s memorialisation of the island as a place of anguish and death that ultimately symbolised the Irish diaspora’s flight to North America. In 1847, over 100,000 Irish sailed to Canada, although an estimated one in five did not survive ..read more

Lily O’Brennan, sister of Áine Ceannt, was born in Dublin in 1878. She was a writer and playwright and joined Cumann na mBan upon its inception; she was a member of the Inghinidhe Branch. During the Rising she served with the Marrowbone Lane garrison. She was arrested and held in Kilmainham Gaol and was released on 8 May, the day of her brother-in-law, Éamonn Ceannt’s execution in the gaol. She continued to be involved in the Republican movement and was a clerk for the National Aid Association which later amalgamated with the Prisoner’s Dependents Fund. She also worked at this time locating th ..read more

Michael Davitt was born at the height of the Great Hunger in Straide, Co Mayo. At four, his family was evicted and forced to emigrate to England. He joined the Fenians in 1865, became organising secretary and was arrested in 1870 for arms smuggling. Released after seven years, he returned to Co Mayo as a national hero. His travels in Connacht showed conditions had not improved. Realising that, if the power of the tenant farmers could be organised, it would be possible to bring about improvement, he arranged a convention in August of 1879. The result was a body called the National Land League o ..read more

Rebellion continues with victory for Irish forces in Wexford. At Three Rocks, just outside Wexford town, 70 English militia are killed in a carefully planned ambush by Irish forces. In response to this and other action, English troops abandon Wexford town. At this stage, almost all of Wexford is in the hands of Irish forces. A letter written at this time to a Mr. Addington by Dr. Butson, Dean of Waterford, describes in some detail the travails of the Loyalist population. Waterford, 31 May. ”Nothing can exceed the melancholy aspect of this place. The insurgents in our neighbouring county of Wex ..read more

1630 – Birth of Charles Stuart who will become Charles II of Great Britain and Ireland. 1784 – Belfast’s first Catholic church, St. Mary’s, opens for public worship. 1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: The Battle of Three Rocks – Rebels capture Enniscorthy and Wexford town. 1807 – During the election for Co Wexford, two of the candidates, William Congreve Alcock and John Colclough, fight a duel in front of the county sheriff, 16 magistrates and a large crowd of spectators. Alcock shoots Colclough dead; he is elected; he is also tried and acquitted for killing Colclough, but his mind is badly aff ..read more

King John of England appoints Hugh de Lacy, a leading figure in the Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century, as the 1st Earl of Ulster on 29 May 1205. Circa 1189 de Lacy is appointed Viceroy of Ireland, a position previously held by his father, Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath. He is replaced in 1190 by Guillaume le Petil. He is later reappointed to serve as viceroy from 1205 to 1210. In 1199, King John authorises de Lacy to wage war on John de Courcy, who has conquered much of Ulster without help or permission from the King. Hugh captur ..read more

The United Irishmen’s rebellion in 1798 was strongly supported in the Kildare area, and it was on the Curragh of Kildare that the worst atrocities and suppression of the rising were witnessed. The rebels took over a number of towns in the Kildare area and having held the government forces at bay for over a week they negotiated favourable surrender terms with Lieutenant General Sir Ralph Dundas, Commander of the Midland District Militia. They were to proceed to the Gibbet Rath on the Curragh on the 29 May where they would hand up their arms and would be allowed to return to their homes unharmed ..read more

1205 – King John makes Hugh de Lacy Earl of Ulster. 1660 – English Restoration | Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. 1666 – The Act of Uniformity confirms Guy Fawkes’ day (5 November) as an anniversary, and adds 30 January (execution of Charles I) and 29 May (the Restoration). 1722 – Birth of James Fitzgerald, 20th Earl of Kildare; Duke of Leinster; politici ..read more

Born Alice Sophia Amelia Stopford in Kells, Co Meath, she lived in London where she met the historian John Richard Green. They were married in Chester on 14 June 1877. He died in 1883. John Morley published her first historical work Henry II in 1888. In the 1890s she became interested in Irish history and the nationalist movement as a result of her friendship with John Francis Taylor. She was vocal in her opposition to English colonial policy in South Africa during the Boer Wars and supported Roger Casement’s Congo Reform movement. In The Making of Ireland and its Undoing (1908), she contradic ..read more

“Two divine persons in one. A mother lamenting her children in bondage. A girl ravished by the Saxon, who weeps over her stringless harp. But her young champions keep watch in the mountains, awaiting the dawn of the bright sun of Freedom. They will gather around her with pikes and swords.” –James Plunkett ––Strumpet City Plunkett grew up among the Dublin working class and they, along with the petty bourgeoisie and lower intelligentsia, make up the bulk of the dramatis personae of his oeuvre. His best-known works are the novel Strumpet City, set in Dublin in the years leading up to the lockout ..read more