7‭ ‬January‭ ‬1922:‭ ‬The Treaty was passed by members of‭ ‬Dáil Éireann‭ ‬assembled at Earlsfort Terrace,‭ ‬Dublin [above] on a vote of‭ ‬64 in favour and 57 against. President De Valera, after the vote was taken, indicated his intention of resigning his position. He said that:

There is one thing I want to say---I want it to go to the country and to the world,‭ ‬and it is this:‭ ‬the Irish people established a Republic. This is simply approval of a certain resolution. The Republic can only be disestablished by the Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people in regular manner disestablish it, this Republic goes on. Whatever arrangements are made this is the supreme sovereign body in the nation; this is the body to which the nation looks for its supreme Government, and it must remain that---no matter who is the Executive---it must remain that until the Irish people have disestablished it.

Michael Collins,‭ ‬who voted to accept the terms replied that:

I ask your permission to make a statement.‭ ‬I do not regard the passing of this thing as being any kind of triumph over the other side. I will do my best in the future, as I have done in the past, for the nation. What I have to say now is, whether there is something contentious about the Republic---about the Government in being---or not, that we should unite on this: that we will all do our best to preserve the public safety.

Soon after the meeting broke up but it was clear that after this things would never be the same again and an unbridgeable rift had opened between those who supported the Treaty and those who were against it.‭ The division of opinion that day was to have one outcome:

‭CIVIL WAR

6/7‭ January 1839: The Night of the Big Wind/ Oiche na Gaoithe Mire. A storm of Hurricane Force swept across Ireland on this night. A Depression of unusual severity it caused much structural damage and considerable fright and distress, especially to those less well off inhabitants of this island whose dwellings were just plain thatched cabins of loose construction. However even more solidly built structures did not escape unscathed and in some ways were even more dangerous to those within as chimneys came crashing down upon at least some of the unfortunates inside. Overall though the numbers of deaths caused by this violent tempest were few and the loss of life was limited to just a few dozen at most. However there is no doubt that for a considerable proportion of the Irish population the events of this visitation remained in the popular imagination as a night never to be forgotten.
The sequence of events had begun the previous evening,‭ Saturday 5th January 1839, when heavy snow fell throughout Ireland. The next morning, Sunday the 6th, it was completely calm and the sky was covered with motionless, dense cloud. As the morning progressed, the temperature rose well above the January average. While children played in the snow outdoors, mothers and fathers were inside their homes preparing for the festivities of Little Christmas - the feast of the Epiphany. It became unnaturally still. So calm that voices floated between farmhouses more than a mile apart. Something strange was happening, but no one knew exactly what.
Then the snow started to melt as the temperature rose to an unnatural degree for that time of year.‭ However as the warm front which covered the country gradually moved eastwards, and rose in the atmosphere, it was replaced by a cold front which brought with it high winds and heavy rain. The rain commenced before noon in the west and spread very slowly eastwards. In Mayo, the late afternoon turned chilly while the east of the country still enjoyed the unseasonably high temperatures experienced in Mayo earlier that day. At dusk, wind speeds increased, conditions got colder and alternate showers of rain and hail began to fall. By nine o'clock at night the wind had reached gale force and continued to increase. By midnight it had reached hurricane force and remained at that level until five o'clock in the morning when it reduced again to gale force. During the hurricane the wind blew variously from the southwest, west and northwest. Gales continued until six o'clock on Monday evening. At nine o'clock on Monday morning air pressure was at 972.6 Millibars and the temperature was then 4.4. Degrees Celsius in Dublin.
In Dublin the‭ Freeman’s Journal afterwards reported that:
The storm with which this city was visited on Sunday night was one of the most violent which has blown from the face of Heaven within the memory of the oldest inhabitants.‭ At an early hour on Sunday evening the wind freshened to a degree that seemed to promise a rough night, and about half-past ten it rose into a high gale, which continued to increase in fury until shortly after midnight, when it blew a most fearful and destructive tempest. Not a soul dare venture into the streets; the lamps were, without almost any exception, extinguished; and amidst the roaring of the hurricane, which threatened to sweep every obstacle before it from the surface of the earth, the pealing of fire-bells -- the sounds of falling chimneys -- windows breaking, and slates and tiles flying through the streets, were fearfully audible; and sometimes the still more dreadful rocking walls and falling roofs threatened them momentarily with destruction.
In the streets,‭ however, it was impossible to tell in what direction the storm was, for it came in sudden gusts, sweeping sometimes up, and sometimes down, the street, and occasionally two contrary blasts meeting and forming a whirlwind, which made the strongest houses tremble and rock to their foundations. At intervals dense clouds obscured the sky, and added to the horror of the scene by the gloomy darkness which they produced; but when they were driven by, the heavens did not appear less ominous, for the Aurora Borealis burned brightly a great portion of the night, mantling the hemisphere with sheets of red, and corresponding well with the lurid gleams which ascended to the zenith from the flames of burning houses that the tempest threatened to fan into a general conflagration.
After four o'clock the storm sensibly diminished,‭ ‬but continued to rage with considerable fury until daybreak, when it sank back into a steady and heavy gale from the S.W. that continued throughout the remainder of the day.
THE FREEMAN'S JOURNAL Dublin:‭ ‬Tuesday, January 8,1839
For decades afterwards the‭ ‘‬Night of the Big Wind‭’ ‬was used as a marker in the Irish People’s memories to recall events that happened before or after that date. Indeed as late as 1909 when Old age Pensions were introduced many claimed entitlement based on their ability to remember this most unusual and terrible Storm from the days of their youth.

6 January 1931: The death of Harry Clarke at Chur, Switzerland on this day. He was and remains Ireland’s foremost practitioner of stained glass windows. These are now on display across Ireland and abroad in various locations. His father Joshua Clarke was from the city of Leeds in England and moved to Dublin in the late 1870s. He set up a church decorating business and married a local woman Brigid Clarke (née MacGonigal). It was into this family that Harry Clarke was born on St Patricks’ Day 1889.
His mother died in 1903 when he was just 14 years old which was a heavy blow on him. He followed his father into the family business after that and had a  particular affinity with the stained glass works that his dad carried out. Interest developed into love of the genre and as his skill grew so did his reputation as a skilful artist with his own unique style. His ‘The Consecration of Saint Mel, Bishop of Longford, by Saint Patrick’ won the gold medal for stained glass work in the 1910 Board of Education National Competition. He married in Margaret Crilly (a noted artist in her own right) in 1914 and they had three children together.
Clarke moved to London to seek work as a book illustrator.  He was picked up by the noted London publisher Harrap to illustrate their upcoming titles. Difficulties with various projects made Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen his first printed work in 1916, a year in which some of his material was destroyed in Dublin during the 1916 Rising. His illustrated books are noted works of art in themselves but there is no doubt that today it is his fantastic stained glass windows that are still in the public eye and how he is best remembered.
Clarke's stained glass work includes many religious windows, but also much secular stained glass.  He found an influential patron in politician and stockbroker Laurence “Larky” Waldron. A major stained glass commission, 11 windows for the Honan Chapel at University College Cork, completed in 1918, established Clarke’s reputation, and commissions flowed in.
Harry was plagued  by ill health, he was diagnosed with TB in 1929 and was sent to Davos in Switzerland to recuperate. As time went by he feared he would die there far from Ireland and decided to make to long trek home to be there should he succumb to his illness. He didn't make it and passed away in the town of Chur in the valley of the Rhine. He was buried locally but in 1946 his remains were removed and placed in the communal plot there, his family unaware of what had happened until after the deed was done. While his works are now spread over various locations in  Ireland and abroad probably the best place to see his work and the ones best known to the general public are the six on display in Bewleys Cafe in Grafton St Dublin, Be sure to check them out the next time you are in the Fair City.
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Images: Harry Clarke; "The Nativity depicted on a Harry Clarke stained glass window in St Barrahane's Church, Castletownshend, Cork & Harry Clarke windows in Bewleys Café Grafton St Dublin.

4‭ ‬January‭ ‬1969:‭ ‬The‭ ‘‬Peoples Democracy’ March from Belfast to Derry  was attacked at Burntollet Bridge by Loyalists on this day. The RUC flanking the procession failed to offer any meaningful procession to the marchers as they were assaulted and beaten. The original march had begun from Queens University in Belfast on 1 January and was undertaken to highlight the lack of Civil Rights in the North of Ireland.

Along the way to Derry the marchers had been continually heckled and occasionally attacked.‭ However when they reached the narrow defile at Burntollet outside Derry City they were the victims of an organised ambush and viciously attacked by a Loyalist mob. The RUC who were in attendance made no serious attempt to intervene and thus encouraged the attackers that kept up their assault as the marchers ran the gauntlet through to the other side.

One eyewitness described what he saw:
‭"‬The major portion of the C.R. procession was cut off and left at the mercy of the attackers. A fusillade of stones and bottles was followed by the full weight of the attack against the young men and women who had pledged themselves to a policy of non-violence.
"The attackers showed no mercy.‭ ‬Men were beaten senseless.‭ ‬Girls tore their way through the hedges screaming: 'No! No!' Shouting, club-waving, men pursued them."
Irish News

Eventually the marchers got through,‭ ‬but not before many of them, incl. women and girls,‭ had been attacked and beaten and some seriously injured. Those still able then made their went into Derry and the sanctuary of those of their own persuasion.

‭It was a watershed moment for the Catholics in the North as it became clear that their attempts to achieve civil and political parity with the Protestant population would trigger a violent reaction by ultra Loyalists - and that many members of the RUC would be very reluctant to protect them from those forces of Reaction.

3 & 4 (N.S.) January 1602 - 23-24 December 1601 [O.S]: The Battle of Kinsale/Cath Chionn tSáile was fought on this day.
Probably the most decisive battle in Irish History took place on this day. The forces of the Irish under the Earl of Tyrone, Aodh (Hugh) O’Neill, and his ally Aodh ‘Red Hugh’ O’Donnell attacked the English lines surrounding the besieged town of Kinsale and were defeated. Inside was the Spanish garrison under Don John Aquila. The siege had begun two months before when the Spanish had landed at this small fishing port on Ireland’s south east coast. They had been sent by King Philip II of Spain to aid the Catholic Irish in their revolt against the Protestant Queen Elizabeth of England.

News quickly spread throughout the Country of their landing and both the Irish and the English made haste their forces to march south and meet Aquila either as friends or enemies. The English were under the command of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. Mountjoy in Dublin was nearer to Kinsale than the northern leaders in Ulster and consequently got his forces to Kinsale first. He quickly laid siege to Kinsale. However he was not strong enough to risk taking it by storm. With the place blocked by land and by sea he intended to starve the garrison out and hope that the Irish would not be able to envelop him from the outside as well. In the event the Irish came south in sufficient numbers to make it very difficult to re-supply his forces. Both side’s forces suffered from want and lack of shelter but Mountjoy’s men felt it more and thousands of the besiegers of Kinsale died from cold and disease.

The Irish on the outside were not equipped to be so far from their base of operations in Ulster and could not remain indefinitely on the outside unless they had hope of Victory. Eventually they agreed with the Spanish commander to launch an assault if they could be guaranteed that a sally would be made by Aquila’s men to support them. But getting the timing right was crucial and with the English between them it was fright with difficulty.

There was some dispute amongst the Irish as to the best course of action to follow, with O’Donnell for making a determined attack while O’Neill counselled caution. In all probability the decisions of the Irish leaders to attack when they did was taken in light of their dwindling supplies and the desperation of their men to march North to their homes (where English pressure and intrigue was intense). It was a calculated gamble to meet the English in the open as their men were used to a different kind of warfare, one of the woods, the bogs and the rough terrain where English cannon and cavalry were of limited use.The northern leaders chose to bring their forces up to the English lines under cover of night but such a night march is never an easy venture and in the dark columns became disorientated.

They spent much time in the early hours in dispute and contention, which arose between them. The two noble hosts and armies marched at last side by side and shoulder to shoulder together, until they happened to lose their way and go astray, so that their guides and pathfinders could not hit upon the right road, though the winter night was very long and though the camp which they were to attack was very near them, it was not until the time of sunrise on the next day, so that the sun was shining brightly on the face of the solid earth when O’Neills forces found their own flank at the lord Deputy’s camp, and they retired a short distance while their ranks and order would be reformed, for they had left the first order in which they had been drawn up through the straying and the darkness of the night….
Beatha Aodha Ruaidh Ui Domhnaill (The Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell) - Lughaidh O Cleirigh

Formed up in crude and unwieldy copies of the Spanish ‘Tercios’ [blocks of fighting men] it would appear the Irish could not manoeuvre in front of Mountjoy’s fixed positions in a manner that could hope to inflict upon the enemy any significant casualties. In the event Mountjoy was on the ball and took the initiative, using his cannon and cavalry to good effect and scattering the Irish columns and riding down the survivors with his Horse.

They were not long considering them till they fired a thick shower of round balls [to welcome the Irish] from clean, beautiful big guns, with well oiled mechanisms and from finely ridged, costly muskets, and from sharp-aiming, quick firing matchlocks, and they threw upon them every other kind of shot and missile besides. Then burst out over the walls against them nimble troops, hard to resist, of active steady cavalry, who up to that were longing for the order to test the seed of their high galloping horses on the plain. They allowed their foot to follow after for they were certain that the hail of spherical bullets and the force attack of the troops would make destructive gaps in front of them among their enemies. Both armies were mingled together, maiming and wounding each other so that many were slain on both sides.

But in the end O’Neill’s forces were defeated, an unusual thing with them, and they fled swiftly away from the place, and they way the hurry urged them was to pour in on top of O’Donnell’s forces who happened to be east of them and had not yet come to the field of battle. When the routed army of O’Neill, and the troops of the Lord Deputy’s army following them, and swiftly smiting their rear, broke into the midst of O’Donnell’s people, wavering and unsteadiness seized on the soldiers, fright and terror on their horses and though it was their desire and their duty to remain on the field of battle, they could not.
O Cleirigh

Inside Kinsale nothing stirred and De Aquila claimed he was not aware what the Irish planned to do that day. He soon after surrendered and was allowed to depart for Spain with his men. The morale of the Irish in revolt never recovered after this huge setback and the forced departure of the expeditionary force sent by the King of Spain to help them. O’Donnell almost immediately took ship for Spain to organise another expedition but was poisoned there by English agents. O’Neill returned North and fought on until 1603 when he surrendered to Mountjoy. Remarkably he got his personal Estates back and with a fair degree of local control again in his hands. 

But his days were numbered as English Law was gradually extended into Ulster and his authority continually undermined. Fearing imprisonment and execution on trumped up accusations he fled to the Continent in 1607 in the famous ‘Flight of the Earls’. He ended his days in Rome as a charge on the Spanish Monarchy but under the immediate protection of the Pope. He died and was buried there in 1616 - still plotting to regain his lost lands.

2‭ ‬January 1417: The death of Art Mac Murrough Cavanagh ('King of Leinster') on this day.

Art,‭ ‬the son of Art, son of Murtough, son of Maurice, Lord of Leinster, a man who had defended his own province against the English and Irish from his sixteenth to his sixtieth year; a man full of hospitality, knowledge, and chivalry; a man full of prosperity and royalty; the enricher of churches and monasteries, by his alms and offerings, died (after having been forty-two years in the lordship of Leinster) a week after Christmas. 
Some assert that it was of a poisonous drink which a woman gave to him,‭ and to O'Doran, Chief Brehon of Leinster, at Ros-Mic-Triuin [New Ross], that both died. Donough, his son, assumed his place after him.
Annals of the Four Masters 1417 AD 

Art McMurrough Cavanagh was a formidable character in his day.‭ He ‬was born in the year 1357. From an early age he was distinguished by his great hospitality,‭ ‬intelligence and bravery, and I should imagine his contemporaries recognised a certain level of guile in the young Art that would serve him well in his dealings with rivals both internal and external. About the year‭ ‬1375 while he was still under age he was elected successor to his father, according to the annalists, who record his death in 1417, 'after being forty-two years in the government of Leinster.' A traditional Gaelic Leader he married a Lady from the Pale named Elizabeth and so through marriage, inheritance and conquest he dominated large tracts of Wexford, Wicklow, Kildare and Carlow. The Palesmen paid him tribute to keep him sweet and of course in the Gaelic areas he ruled in the old way.

However he did suffer a severe reverse in‭ 1392 when the Earl of Ormond defeated him at Tiscoffin and killed 600 of his best warriors. But Art McMurrough pulled of a great coup when he in turn captured the Colonial town of New Ross.

‭In 1395 he had to contend with a descent on Ireland by the King of England, the hapless Richard II, who brought a huge army with him to overawe the Irish Kings and Chieftains. Though his lands in Carlow were invaded and his warriors defeated the English King could not however get Art to ‘come into his House’ and submit. Instead he gave a promise of safe passage to the Leinsterman to come up to Dublin and treat with him. Though wary, Art accepted the invitation and was imprisoned and could only get his freedom by promising to agree to Richard’s terms. Once free though he resumed his independent way of life and soon fell to harrying the invaders once more.

In the summer of‭ 1398 his allies the O’Byrnes defeated and slew Roger Mortimer, the Earl of March, a potential heir to the Throne of England. This political earthquake brought Richard II back to Ireland in the following year, bent on re establishing English Rule on this island.

But his campaign here was a fiasco,‭ with not even a series of nominal submissions to flaunt at Court when he returned home. Indeed while he was bogged down here news reached him that Henry of Bolingbroke had landed in England to claim the throne for himself. This he did and when Richard went back he was taken prisoner and then probably starved to death by the now King of England Henry IV. Thus Art McMurrough Cavanagh was the catalyst for one of the most momentous events in England’s history.

1 January 1710:Charles O'Conor Don/Cathal Ó Conchubhair Donn was born on this day. He was the foremost Gaelic Historian of the 18th Century and by his efforts he helped to preserve the ancient manuscripts and the History of Ireland against the encroachments of those who would see it as best forgotten. He was also a Man of Letters who corresponded far and wide with those with similar interests to himself.

Charles O'Conor was born in 1710, in County Sligo, to a cadet branch of the land-owning family of O'Conor Don and was sent for his education to Father Walter Skelton's school in Dublin. O'Conor was well known in Ireland from his youth, as a civil-tongued, but adamant advocate of Gaelic culture and history, who had suffered for his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith and was the locally-recognised Ó Conchubhair Donn, profoundly knowledgeable about Irish culture and history.

His collection of manuscripts and manuscript copies, annotated with his copious notes and comments, made up the first part of the Annals of the Four Masters were collected at the Stowe Library and at that time many of them were the only copies known to exist. In 1883 these were returned to the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.

Perhaps his greatest contribution though was that of ensuring that the source & origin of Gaelic Culture was from Ireland and not in Scotland. This had been ascertained by certain Scottish writers as many parts of that Country did indeed have a similar culture to the native Irish one. He successfully countered this in his work Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland (1753) - a work that drew the praise of no lesser figure than Samuel Johnson himself - a Scotsman and the most illustrious 'Man of Letters' in these islands in the 18th Century.

Charles O’Conor was much respected by the local people where he lived at Bellanagare/ Béal Átha na gCarr Co Roscommon situated near the ancestral lands of the kings of Connacht - the O'Connors. He owed this respect to his recognised direct descent from that line of Kings.

In his Tour in Ireland (1780) Arthur Young mentioned his visit to O'Conor:

At Clonells, near Castlerea, lives O’Connor, the direct descendant of Roderick O’Connor who was king of Connaught six or seven hundred years ago; there is a monument of him in Roscommon Church, with his sceptre, etc. I was told as a certainty that this family were here long before the coming of the Milesians. Their possessions, formerly so great, are reduced to three or four hundred pounds a year, the family having fared in the revolutions of so many ages much worse than the O’Niels and O’Briens. The common people pay him the greatest respect, and send him presents of cattle, etc., upon various occasions. They consider him as the prince of a people involved in one common ruin.

He was much respected by other Irish scholars. Dr. O'Donovan styled him "this patriotic and venerable gentleman.. who understood the Irish language well," a tribute to his exertions for the preservation of Irish manuscripts.

Mr. Wyse, in his History of the Catholic Association, says: "The entire object of his long life seems to have been to redeem it [his country] from the self-ignorance, the blind impolicy, the national degradation to which it had been reduced. In this lofty and noble vocation, no man ever put out, with more perfect abandonment of all unworthy motive, the valuable gifts which he had received."

He died at his beloved Bellanagare in July 1791 and left behind a legacy of historical scholarship and preservation that has stood the test of time. Without his efforts the study of ancient and early modern Irish History would be much the poorer.