2 February 1815: Daniel O'Connell killed John D'Esterre in a duel at Bishopscourt, near Naas Co Kildare. The encounter came about after D’Esterre [a provision merchant and a member of Dublin Corporation] believed he had been insulted by O’Connell.

The cause of the duel was a political speech made by O’Connell to the Catholic Board on 22nd January, 1815 in which he described the ascendancy-managed Dublin Corporation as beggarly and refusing to apologise for his criticism of Dublin Corporation's neglect of Catholics, . D’Esterre, at the time nearing bankruptcy took this as a personal insult and sent O’Connell a letter demanding a withdrawal of the statement. When this letter went unanswered, he sent a second letter which O’Connell responded to, asking D’Esterre if he wanted to challenge him, why hadn’t he yet done so. D’Esterre set out to provoke O’Connell into a challenge, and at one stage ventured out onto the streets of Dublin looking for him, horsewhip in hand only to be forced into seeking refuge in a sympathetic home, such was the crowd that began to follow him around.

D’Esterre was a man whose luck seemed to have run out. He was facing a disastrous bankruptcy, his marriage was on the rocks if not already over. His wife was pregnant with his second child. He may also have been a victim of circumstances. While it was he who took exception to O’Connell’s remark of “beggarly” on January 24th in relation to Dublin Corporation (in retaliation for its earlier anti-Catholic resolution) and sent his challenge to a man who could not refuse as his personal courage was being publicly questioned of late years.

A duel was thus arranged to settle the matter. The appointed time on the day set was at 3.30 p.m. O’Connell arrived at three and seemed to be most calm and collected, but fell on his backside as he crossed a ditch onto the “pitch”. Undeterred he, and more so his seconds, prepared professionally. D’Esterre arrived at 4pm. It took 40 minutes or so to decide the means, etc. i.e., a case of pistols each, ten paces apart, to fire according to his judgement at the drop of a handkerchief Their last exchange of words meant there was going to be no back-down.

D’Esterre then very honourably stated that he had no animosity towards Catholics whatsoever. At the signal he moved and fired first but missed very badly, his shot falling short. It’s possible this was deliberate as he was an ex Officer in the Royal Marines and a crack shot by all accounts. He may have expected O’Connell to reciprocate in kind. But it was not to be and almost instantly O’Connell (who seems to have been no mean shot himself) fired and hit his target. D’Esterre instantly collapsed shot through the lower spine. Still alive he was carried away clinging to life. In two days he was dead having bled to death.

O’Connell returned in a triumphal cavalcade back to Dublin where his deed earned him respect as a man not be trifled with in Public Life. But O’Connell soon had regrets and he set up a pension for his dead opponent’s daughter and later went to great efforts to conduct legal business for the widow of D’Esterre.

1‭ ‬February‭ ‬523/25:‭ ‬The death of Saint Brigid/‭ ‬Naomh Bhríde‭ ‬aka‭ ‬‘Mary of the Gael‭’‬ and the‭ ‘‬Fiery Arrow‭’ ‬on this day.‭ ‬Or as the Irish Annals are fond of stating‭ ‘‬according to some‭’‬.‭

1‭ ‬February‭ ‬525‭ ‬AD:‭ ‬Saint Brighit,‭ ‬virgin,‭ ‬Abbess of Cill Dara,‭ ‬died.‭ ‬It was to her Cill Dara was first granted,‭ ‬and by her it was founded.‭ ‬Brighit was she who never turned her mind or attention from the Lord for the space of one hour,‭ ‬but was constantly meditating and thinking of him in her heart and mind,‭ ‬as is evident in her own Life,‭ ‬and in the Life of St.‭ ‬Brenainn,‭ ‬Bishop of Cluain Fearta.‭ ‬She spent her time diligently serving the Lord,‭ ‬performing wonders and miracles,‭ ‬healing every disease and every malady,‭ ‬as her Life relates,‭ ‬until she resigned her spirit to heaven,‭ ‬the first day of the month of February‭; ‬and her body was interred at Dun,‭ ‬in the same tomb with Patrick,‭ ‬with honour and veneration.

Annals of the Four Masters

Though according to another account the key dates in her Life were as follows:

Birth of St.‭ ‬Brigid,‭ ‬on a Wednesday,‭ ‬the‭ ‬8th of the February moon‭; ‬on a
Wednesday,‭ ‬the‭ ‬18th,‭ ‬she received the veil,‭ ‬with eight virgins‭; ‬on a
Wednesday,‭ ‬the‭ ‬28th,‭ ‬she rested.

Chronicon Scotorum‭ ‬439‭ ‬AD

Whatever the true story of Brigid’s Life we are capable of putting together the outlines of her story.‭ ‬She was born to a mother called‭ ‬Brocca,‭ ‬a Christian from Britain who was not married to but subserviant to Dubhthach,‭ ‬a Gaelic Chieftain and the father of‭ ‬Brigid.‭ ‬Her place of birth was at Faughart in what is now north Co Louth.‭ ‬Whether Brocca was merely an attractive slave girl or a trophy mistress taken on a raid is an open question but its possible that Brigid did not know her father well while a child and was more or less raised by her Mother.‭ ‬Her name Brigid was taken from that of a Celtic Goddess and this considered Deity was apparently worshipped in her Father’s Household.‭ ‬This female deity was the goddess of fire,‭ ‬whose manifestations were song,‭ ‬craftsmanship,‭ ‬and poetry,‭ ‬which the Irish considered the flame of knowledge.

As she grew to womanhood she showed signs of piety and generosity to those less fortunate than herself.‭ ‬While the date is not quite certain she was perhaps took the veil in around‭ ‬468‭ ‬AD and was received into Holy Orders by Saint Mel.‭ ‬If this be true she might have already have been a devotee of Brigid and as the daughter of a powerful man who was won over to Christianity she would have been a important convert to the Church.‭

She is believed to have founded her first convent in Clara,‭ ‬County Offaly,‭ ‬other ones followed after her fame grew.‭ ‬But it was to be in Kildare that her major foundation would emerge.‭ ‬Her father seems to have had his base around here and have used his local influence to secure her a good site,‭ ‬perhaps on the locus of an earlier Shrine to Goddess herself.‭ ‬Around‭ ‬470‭ ‬she founded Kildare Abbey,‭ ‬a double monastery,‭ ‬for nuns and monks,‭ ‬on the plains of‭ ‬Cill-Dara,‭ "‬the church of the oak‭"‬,‭ ‬her cell being made under a large oak tree.‭ ‬As Abbess of this sacred place she wielded considerable power.‭ ‬She became famous for her great spiritual powers over men and women and the animals that she encountered.‭ ‬She was also reputed to have powerful gifts of divination and the ability to impose herself on the powers of Nature.‭ ‬Perhaps in a throwback to her earlier devotion she maintained a Sacred Flame at her abbey of Kildare that was never allowed to go out.‭

We are not quite sure of the exact year of Brigit's settlement here‭; ‬but it probably occurred about‭ ‬485,‭ ‬when she was thirty years of age.‭ ‬Hard by the church she also built a dwelling for herself and her community.‭ ‬We are told in the Irish Life of St.‭ ‬Brigit that this first house was built of wood like the houses of the people in general‭; ‬and the little church under the oak was probably of wood also,‭ ‬like most churches of the time.‭ ‬As the number of applicants for admission continued to increase,‭ ‬both church and dwelling had to be enlarged from time to time‭; ‬and the wood was replaced by stone and mortar.‭ ‬Such was the respect in which the good abbess was held,‭ ‬that visitors came from all parts of the country to see her and ask her advice and blessing:‭ ‬and many of them settled down in the place,‭ ‬so that a town gradually grew up near the convent,‭ ‬which was the beginning of the town of Kildare.

From‭ ‘‬The Wonders of Ireland‭’ ‬by P.‭ ‬W.‭ ‬Joyce,‭ ‬1911

But eventually St Brigid went the way of all flesh and on her death her mortal remains were buried beside the High Alter of her beloved Church in Kildare.‭ ‬Years later when the Viking Raids moved inwards her remains were dug up and moved to Downpatrick and eventually interred along with those of Saints Patrick and Columba‭ (‬Columcille‭)‬.‭ ‬Alas we now know not their exact place of burial but it is believed they may be buried underneath or near Downpatrick Cathedral.

In Down,‭ ‬three saints one grave do fill,‭
‬Patrick,‭ ‬Brigid and Columcille
‭ 
After her death the‭ ‬1st February became known in Ireland as Féile Brígíd and it replaced the old Celtic Festival of Imbolc that celebrated the beginnings of Springtime.‭ ‬For nearly‭ ‬1,500‭ ‬years the eve of her day was marked throughout the Country but especially in Leinster with the St Brigid’s Cross,‭ ‬a reworking of the more traditional one and possibly based on an even more ancient design.

Numerous‭ ‘‬Lives‭’ ‬were written about her of which we know the following:

The first of them is contained in a hymn in very ancient Irish,‭ ‬written by St.‭ ‬Broegan Claen,‭ ‬abbot of Rosturk,‭ ‬in Ossory,‭ ‬on‭ “‬The Titles and Miracles of the Saint.‭”
The second‭ ‬Life‭ ‬is by Cogitosus.‭ ‬It is in Latin prose.‭ ‬Most probably he was a monk of the monastery of Kildare that was under the rule of St.‭ ‬Brigid in ancient times,‭ ‬for he describes,‭ ‬in great detail,‭ ‬the architecture,‭ ‬ornaments,‭ ‬and arrangements of the church,‭ ‬as if lie had it before his eyes every day.
The third‭ ‬Life‭ ‬is by St.‭ ‬Ultan,‭ ‬of Ardbraccan,‭ ‬in Meath,‭ ‬the same who induced St.‭ ‬Breogan to write the metrical‭ ‬Life‭ ‬already mentioned.
The‭ ‬4th‭ ‬Life‭ ‬is by Anmchad,‭ ‬Latinized Animosus:‭ ‬it is in Latin metre.‭ ‬Who this Anmchad was‭ — ‬whether he was Bishop of Kildare and died in‭ ‬980,‭ ‬or another‭ — ‬we have not sufficient grounds for saying with anything like certainty.‭ ‬The work seems to be that of one well acquainted with Kildare and its surroundings,‭ ‬and is more detailed than the others already mentioned.
The‭ ‬5th‭ ‬Life‭ ‬is the work of Laurence of Durham,‭ ‬a Benedictine monk,‭ ‬who lived about the year‭ ‬1100.
Lastly,‭ ‬there is the‭ ‬Life‭ ‬by St.‭ ‬Caelan,‭ ‬a monk of Iniscealtra,‭ ‬in the Shannon,‭ ‬near Scariff.‭ ‬It is in Latin hexameters.‭ ‬It was discovered by an Irish Benedictine in the library of the mother-house of the Order,‭ ‬at Monte Cassino.‭ ‬The author lived in the first half of the eighth century.

Saint Brigid of Kildare
By the Rev.‭ ‬Denis Murphy S.J.

http://mysite.verizon.net/cbladey/brigid/saintale.html#The%20Journal%20of

31 January 1953: The Loss of the Princess Victoria. 126 people were drowned when the car ferry of that name sank while making it’s way from Stranraer to Larne. In one of the worst gales in living memory in these islands the ship went down when heavy seas caused the stern car deck doors to buckle and break open. Water then flooded into the ship causing her to capsize. Among the passengers who perished were Stormont’s Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Major J M Sinclair, and Sir Walter Smiles, the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down.

Captained by the 55 year old James Ferguson, the vessel left Stranraer's railway loading pier at 07:45 AM with 44 tons of cargo, 128 passengers and 51 crew. Captain Ferguson had served as master on various ferries on the same route for 17 years. A gale warning was in force but he made the decision to put to sea.

There were 44 survivors, notably none of the women and children on board were rescued but neither were any the ship's officers either incl Captain Ferguson. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a lifeboat containing at least some of the women and children being smashed against the side of the Princess Victoria by the huge waves. The disaster shocked many people because, although it took place in extreme weather conditions, it involved a routine journey, on a relatively short crossing (20 miles) in what were believed to be safe waters.

The ship had sent out distress signals in Morse code but due to the listing of the vessel continually gave wrong readings as to its actual location. The winds were terrific and visibility very poor in great storm that caused havoc across north west Europe that day. As a result ships sent to assist in the rescue failed to spot her as she sank and perhaps lives that could have been saved were thus lost. No aircraft was available to help locate her either.

The Court of Enquiry into the sinking, held in March 1953 at Crumlin Road Courthouse in Belfast found that the Princess Victoria was lost due to a combination of factors. In a report of 30,000 pages the enquiry found that: firstly, the stern doors were not sufficiently robust.

Secondly, arrangements for clearing water from the car deck were inadequate. The report concluded "If the Princess Victoria had been as staunch as those who manned her, then all would have been well and the disaster averted."

In summary it found that the loss of the M V 'Princess Victoria' was caused or contributed to by the default of the owners and the manager in that they were negligent before the disaster:

a) In failing to appreciate that the vessel was unfit to encounter the full range of foreseeable weather conditions on the Larne and Stranraer route by reason of the inabilit6y of the stern doors to withstand heavy seas.

b) In not taking appropriate steps to provide adequate freeing arrangements on the car deck or else to make the stern doors sufficiently strong and adequate to prevent heavy seas from flooding that deck.

30 January 1972: Bloody Sunday –  British soldiers shot 26 people taking part in a Civil Rights March in Derry City. 13  were killed that day and another man died of his wounds. Widespread condemnation followed throughout Ireland and abroad. The British Army claimed that its soldiers had fired at identifiable gunmen and bombers. The participants and survivors of the March and many independent witnesses refuted this.

The shootings took place as a major Civil Rights March was coming to an end. Sporadic rioting had broken out involving some hundreds of youths and members of the British Army. These developments were not unexpected and not seen as out of the ordinary at the time.  Then for some reason never satisfactorily explained members of the 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment  who were deployed in the City that day opened indiscriminate fire on rioters and innocent bystanders alike, shooting many people and arresting many more.  At the time panic and fear were quickly replaced by anger and grief. These gruesome events were a watershed for many Irish People and undermined any conception that the British were neutral in the North of Ireland.

The men shot dead that day were:

Patrick ('Paddy') Doherty ( 31)

Gerald Donaghy (17)

John ('Jackie ') Duddy (17)

Hugh Gilmour (17)

Michael Kelly (17)

Michael McDaid (20)

Kevin McElhinney (17)

Bernard D('Barney') lMcGuigan (41)

Gerald McKinney (35)

William ('Williee') McKinney  (26)

William Nash (19 )

James ('Jim')  Wray (22)

John Young (17)

John Johnston (59 ) – died 16  June 1972.

29 January circa 598AD: Feast day of Saint Dallán Forgaill. Saint Dallán's given name was Eochaid, his father was Colla, and his mother was Forgall. His nickname, Dallán ("little blind one"), was earned after he lost his sight, reputedly as a result of studying intensively. He was born in Maigen near what is now Ballyconnel Co Cavan circa 530AD.

He is famous for writing poetry in particular Amhra Coluim Cille - a poem in praise of St Columba and considered one of the most important poems we have from the early medieval Gaelic world. The "Amhra Coluim Cille" became a popular text for students in Irish monasteries. He also said to have wrote Rop Tú Mo Baile /Be Thou My Vision; it opens with the lines:
Rop tú mo baile, a Choimdiu cride
Be thou my vision O Lord
This has been set to music in modern times and is a prayer that belongs to a type known as a lorica - a prayer for protection.

Saint Dallán was killed while visiting his colleague Saint Conall Cael at his monastery on Inis keel/Inis Caoil [above] off the coast of Donegal when pirates raided the island. Dallán  was reportedly beheaded.  He was buried on Iniskeel, his friend Conall Cael was later laid to rest in the same grave. Today the island has no inhabitants.

Dallán was recognised as the Chief Ollam of Ireland - the Bard with the most status in the Country really and was also a noted Latin Scholar.

The following works are attributed to Dallán, although some may be later works by other poets who credited Dallán with authorship in order to make their poems more famous.

1. Amra Conall Coel

2. Dubgilla dub-airm n-aisse

3. Fo réir Coluim cén ad-fías

4. Conn cet cathach a righi

5. Rop tú mo baile

28 January 1939:  The death of William Butler Yeats on this day. He died at Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, in the south of France.  He was Ireland’s most distinguished poet and playwright of the 20th Century. Yeats’ works drew heavily on Irish mythology and history. He never fully embraced his Protestant past or the Catholic Religion but he devoted much of his life to study in numerous subjects including theosophy,  mysticism, spiritualism, and the Kabala.

He was born on  13 of June 1865 in Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland.  His father was John Butler Yeats, a well known portrait painter and his mother was Susan Mary Pollexfen who was the daughter of a wealthy family from County Sligo. In 1884 Yeats enrolled in the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin during which some of his first poems were printed in the Dublin University Review. He afterwards moved to London where his father was based though he was often homesick for Ireland. Though he visited Sligo almost every summer. He spent time in the British Museum of Natural History doing research for such collaborations as  Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry ( 1888), Irish Fairy Tales (1892) , and A Book of Irish Verse (1895).

In 1894 Yeats met Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park and he became involved with The Irish Literary Theatre, which became the Abbey Theatre. One of the first plays to be performed there was Yeats’  Cathleen ni Houlihan, with Maud Gonne in the title role. The Abbey Theatre opened in December of 1904  and became the flagship for leading Irish playwrights and actors. Yeats’ On Baile’s Strand was one of its first productions. Of his many dramatic and successful works to follow,  The Countess Cathleen (1892),  The Land of Heart’s Desire (1894) and The King’s Threshold (1904) are among his best known.

As a successful poet and playwright, in 1903 Yeats went on a lecture tour of the United States, and again in 1914, 1920, and 1932. Yeats and his sisters started the Cuala Press in 1904, which would print over seventy titles. At the age of forty-six, Yeats met Georgie (George) Hyde Lees  (1892-1968) and they married on the 20 October, 1917. They had two children Anne (born 1919 ) and Michael who was born in 1921.

In 1916 the Easter Rising occurred in Dublin, and some of Yeats’ s friends participated in it. This prompted his poem Easter  (Sept. 1916). In this year the first volume of Yeats’ autobiography Reveries over Childhood and Youth was published, with the second following in 1922 titled The Trembling of the Veil. In 1917 Yeats bought a Norman tower near Coole Park in Galway for his summer home.  The Wild Swans at Coole was then published in 1919.

In 1922 Yeats received an Honorary degree from Trinity College,  Dublin. He was elected to the Irish Free State Senate in the same year, and he served for six years before resigning due to failing health. In December of  1923  he established his International reputation when he was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for Literature. He continued to work on his essays, poetry and the poetry anthology Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935. . As well as Coole Park he also spent time in his home ‘Riversdale’ at Rathfarnham, Dublin but also spent a number of winters abroad.

When he died in France at the age of 73  he was first buried there, but in 1948, in accordance with his wishes he was re-interred “under bare Ben Bulben’s head” in Drumcliff churchyard,  County Sligo. His epitaph reads:

Cast a cold eye

On life, on death.

Horseman, pass by.

27 January 1944: Ada English - Patriot and Psychiatrist – died on this day.
Ada English (1875-1944) grew up in Mullingar, where her father was a pharmacist and town commissioner. She studied medicine at the Catholic University School of Medicine, Cecilia Street (now Temple Bar), and worked at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, Richmond Asylum, and Temple Street, before becoming assistant resident medical superintendent at Connaught District Lunatic Asylum in Ballinasloe in 1904. Ada spent four decades working tirelessly at the Ballinasloe hospital, until her retirement in 1942.

Brendan Kelly Irish Times 13 October 2014

These are the bare bones of the Life of Ada English. However her time on this earth was one filled with a pioneering spirit that pushed the boundaries of what was possible in this Country both on how we govern our own affairs and in how we treat our mentally ill.

Adeline English was born in 1875 in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry into a middle class family. Her father was a pharmacist and a member of the Mullingar Town Commissioners while her grandfather, Richard, had been Master of the Old Castle Workhouse in the town. She was educated at the Loreto Convent in Mullingar and graduated from Royal University of Ireland (she attended Queen's College Galway) in 1903, reputedly as one of the first female psychiatrists in Ireland.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors, unlike psychologists, and must evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments, or strictly psychiatric.

She seems to have made some impression there as Mary Macken (later Professor) remembered her:

I remember her crisp blond hair, remarkable eyes and fascinating lisp. She struck me as being singularly adult. She was in fact some years my senior and tolerant of everything except incompetence or willingness on our part to put up with it. For she burned to get at her real work of medicine; it was for her as much a vocation as a profession.

Ada English- Patriot and Psychiatrist

Brendan Kelly Dublin 2014

At the time Ada started in her profession the treatment of mental illness in this Country was very different from now. The treatment of those with mental distress was based on incarcerating people in vast institutions with very little in the way of creature comforts or outlets for those unfortunate to be placed in them.

For a short period, she had an appointment at a London hospital before, in 1904, taking the position of assistant RMS at the Lunatic Asylum (now St Bridget's Hospital), in Ballinasloe. When she started working at Ballinasloe in 1904, the asylum housed 1,293 patients, 774 of whom were males and 519 who were females. This number was to rise to close on 2,000! It was here that she developed the practice of the use of Occupational Therapy as a therapeutic to help to relieve the boredom and distress of the inmates. Ballinasloe was the first mental institution in Ireland to use electric convulsive therapy to administer shock therapy to patients – a controversial practice but still in use today on a more limited scale.

Ada English was also a committed Nationalist and Republican. Almost her first act in arriving in Ballinasloe was to have the buttons on the staff tunics removed (minted with Queen Victoria) and replaced with Galway’s coat of arms.

She was out in Easter 1916 with the Volunteers in Athenry and was jailed by the British in 1920 and spent six months in prison for ‘seditious literature’. In 1921 she was returned unopposed to represent the NUI constituency in Dáil Éireann. She opposed the subsequent Treaty with Britain and spoke against it in the Treaty Debates:

I think it is wrong; I have various reasons for objecting to it, but the main one is that, in my opinion, it was wrong against Ireland, and a sin against Ireland. I do not like talking here about oaths… but certainly, while those oaths are in it, oaths in which we are asked to accept the King of England as head of the Irish State, and we are asked to accept the status of British citizens—British subjects—that we cannot accept.

Ada lost her seat at the subsequent election in June 1922 but did not drop her interest in politics. She assisted anti-Treatyites during the Civil War and served in a medical capacity in the Dublin battles of July 1922. She maintained her opposition to the Treaty and refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Irish Free State. Along with other members of the rump 2nd Dáil, she played a part in that during the 1920s which saw itself as the true government of the Irish Republic.

She died in 1944 in Ballinasloe a much respected figure both locally and nationally. She is buried in Creagh Cemetery in Ballinasloe