29‭ June ‬1915: The death of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, Fenian, on this day in New York City. He was born at Roscarbery County Cork in 1831 to a family of tenant farmers. As a young man he kept a shop in Skibereen but became increasingly involved in revolutionary politics. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood on its foundation and was soon arrested by the British. 

 In 1865, he was charged with plotting a Fenian rising, put on trial for high treason and sentenced to penal servitude for life due to his previous convictions. He spent five years in English jails in very harsh conditions. In 1869 he was elected an MP but his victory was annulled as he was considered a ‘Felon’. In 1870 he was released on condition that he went into Exile and he sailed for New York with a group of fellow exiles that were dubbed the ‘Cuba Five’ after the boat they left in.

Once in New York he helped to organise clandestine operations against British rule and was the main instigator of the‭ ‘Dynamite Campaign’ – a series of bombings in England designed to force Britain to relinquish her hold on Ireland. However he was allowed to return home in 1894 and in 1904 on brief visits. In later years he suffered from ill health and was confined to a hospital on Staten Island. He died there in 1915 and his remains were returned home for burial. His graveside was the occasion of Padraig Pearse’s famous oration on the power of the Fenian dead. On his immediate hearing of his death Pearse recorded the following: 

O'Donovan Rossa was not the greatest man of the Fenian generation,‭ ‬but he was its most typical man. He was the man that to the masses of his countrymen then and since stood most starkly and plainly for the Fenian idea…

No man,‭ ‬no government, could either break or bend him. Literally he was incapable of compromise. He could not even parley with compromisers. Nay, he could not act, even for the furtherance of objects held in common, with those who did not hold and avow all his objects…

Enough to know that the valiant soldier of Ireland is dead‭; that the unconquered spirit is free.

28 June 1919: The Treaty of Versailles was signed on this day.  On the afternoon of 28 June 1919 two German Ministers, Johannes Bell and Hermann Müller stepped forward inside the magnificent Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles to sign a document placed before them to formally bring to an end the Great War and hopefully establish Peace in Europe once again. The Conference had opened on 18 January 1919. The date and setting were significant. On that day and in the same place in 1871 Wilhelm I had been proclaimed Emperor of a united Germany, following France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. 

The tranquillity of the continent had been shattered by the assassination five years to the day beforehand [28 June 1914] when the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie had been shot dead on the streets of Sarajevo  in Bosnia. Within weeks most of Europe was at War that was to claim the lives of millions of her People.

But it was a bitter pill for the German delegates to swallow as their signatures were viewed as a humiliation by their own People. Germany had started the War as the most powerful Empire in Europe and was a powerhouse of Industry & Armaments. By 1919 she was on her knees. Under the terms of the Treaty she was to be shorn of lands and provinces she considered hers by Right of Conquest and Blood. Lands and People were taken by the French, Belgians, Danes and Poles. Not only that but Germany had to reduce her once mighty Army and Navy to the status of a paltry 100,000 men home force and basically a flotilla of boats to guard her coastline. She was denied the use of tanks, submarines, or an Air Force of any kind.

By far the biggest humiliation though was the imposition of a huge level of reparations for the damage her armies had inflicted on the lands of the Allies that they had occupied during the War. The notorious Article 231 of the Treaty established German War guilt for starting the War and on the foundation of that principle a punitive level of reparations were deemed to be due to the Allied Powers from Germany*

Article 231
"The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."

This really stuck in the throat of the German Delegates and back home where there was outrage and anger at such harsh terms. The Germans had been led to believe [or chose to believe] that under the US President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Point Plan for Peace that the Rights to self determination of all peoples would be respected and that they would get a reasonably honourable deal. But the opposition of France in particular knocked this one on  the head as they wanted Revenge for the damage to their Country caused by Germans during their Occupation of northern France for over four years. All the major Allied Powers [bar Russia] that had fought Germany signed the Treaty, the USA, the British Empire, the Republic of France, the Kingdoms of Italy and Belgium etc, followed by the lesser powers who took part in the War.

However one Country that had struck for its Freedom during the War in 1916 and indeed had seen many of its countrymen fighting with the Allies & that had shed so much of their blood for the ‘Freedom of small Nations’ on the battlefields of France and Belgium & further afield was absent - and that was the newly declared Irish Republic. It was not for want of trying as the Irish Cabinet had already dispatched a little delegation of its own to Paris to try their luck at pressing the Allied Powers about upholding the Principle of self determination.

On February 22 1919 Sean T. O’Kelly, [T.D. and Ceann Comhairle of the 1st Dáil Éireann] addressed a letter to the President of the Peace Conference M. Clemenceau [President of France] and to every delegate to the Conference in Paris. He brought to their notice the claim of the Government of the Irish Republic for international recognition; he requested the conference to receive its delegates and allow them the earliest opportunity:

‘To establish formally and definitely before the Peace Conference and the League of Nations Commission, now assembled in Paris, Ireland’s indisputable right to international recognition of her independence and the propriety of her claim to enter the League of Nations as one of its constituent members’
The Irish Republic by Dorothy Macardle pages 259-260.

O’Kelly distributed copies to all the delegates assembled in Paris but it was to no avail and Irish demands were brushed aside. However the cat as it were was out the bag and was not for turning. Wilson had opened a Pandora’s Box that National self determination was the cornerstone of International Affairs. Specifically Point 14 of his Plan:

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

28 June 1919 was thus  a seminal moment in the History of Europe and indeed of the World. Germany had been wounded but was not crushed and the bitterness of the terms of the Treaty led to a thirst for revenge on its perpetrators - a legacy that was come back and haunt Europe in the decades to come. Further afield the concept of National self determination came to be seen as a Global Principle that all the European Great Powers would eventually be held accountable to. And they were.

* The final payment was made on 3 October 2010, settling German loan debts in regard to reparations.

Painting: the signing of the Treaty of Versailles 28 June 1919 by William Orpen.

27 June 1846: Charles Stewart Parnell was born into a Protestant aristocratic and land-owning family at Avondale, Co. Wicklow on this day. His parents were John Henry Parnell and Delia Tudor Stewart (the daughter of an American naval hero, Commodore Charles Stewart). His parents split up when he was about six years old and so he was sent to school in England at an early age that included a stint at an academy for young ladies at Yeovil in Somerset. But here he contracted typhoid fever and was brought home for private tuition. He later went to a school in Kirk Langley, Derbyshire, from which he was expelled; and then to the Great Ealing School.

 It is generally accepted that his childhood was not a happy one and that his stays amongst them did not enhance his feelings for the English. His own grandfather had fought in the US Navy in the War of 1812 and won a medal for fighting the British. When his father died in 1859 the young Parnell inherited the Avondale estate. The family lived in a succession of homes in the Dublin area during the 1860s. Parnell also attended Rev. Whishaw’s Academy in Chipping Norton. He went on to Magdalene College, Cambridge, but did not graduate.

It was only when he was 27 years old, and after having toured the United States that he decided to seek a career in politics. In 1874 he became High Sheriff of his home county of Wicklow in which he was also officer in the Wicklow Militia. He was noted as an improving landowner who played an important part in opening the south Wicklow area to industrialisation. He was first elected to represent the County of Meath at the Parliament of Westminster in the year 1875.

26‭ June 1932: The Eucharistic Congress culminated on this day when over one million people attended the Pontifical High Mass in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. The Chief Celebrant was the Papal Legate Cardinal Lorenzo Lauri, personally selected by Pope  Pius XI himself. The Holy Father had charged him to:

Go to Ireland in my name and say to the good people assembled there that the Holy Father loves Ireland and sends to Ireland and its inhabitants and visitors not the usual Apostolic blessing but a very special all embracing one.

The arrival of the Cardinal and the holding of the‭ ‬19th Eucharistic Congress in Dublin was seen as a great honour for the Catholics of Ireland. The week long event saw huge displays of religious devotion with crowds of tens of thousands in attendance at various events. The high point of the Eucharistic Congress came on the final Sunday of the week’s festivities in the form of a massive open air mass in the Phoenix Park. An ornate High Altar flanked with choirs and bands from all over the Catholic world was the main focus of attention. The Cardinal was accompanied by the highest ranks of the Irish Catholic Hierarchy in his fulfilment of his celebration of the Mass. In addition thousands of the Clergy were there to witness and partake in the biggest religious gathering the Country had ever seen.

‭“‬It is 12.30. The Bishops are assembling, their purple shining through the green of the trees. They march in hundreds, slowly, pensively, the Bishops of the world, in white and black and red, in cream and gold and brown. They file through the three thousand priests like a coloured thread being drawn through white silk. Then up the crimson carpet, turning right and left to the colonnades of the altar, and there they sit and seen from afar through the white pillars, each group looking like Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper.”

THE IRISH PRESS

The Government of Mr Eamon De Valera and the leading members of the Opposition were in attendance as well as numerous dignitaries from home and abroad.‭ ‬The huge multitude heard Mass broadcast over an extensive PA system, the largest in the world at that time. The event was listened to across the Nation and internationally through the medium of Radio Athlone. Count John McCormack gave a brilliant rendition of the Panis Angelicus (Bread of the Angels) to the multitude that grew praise from many quarters. 

The audition was marvellous,‭ whether it was of the full tones of the Cardinal Legate as he spoke the Mass, the tuneful antiphon of the choir, the sharp clamour of the trumpets as they paid homage at the elevation of the Host, or the beautiful voice of John Mc Cormack that came clear and bell like, borne without a tremor over the whole silent space, midway through the Service. It was at that moment of the Elevation of the Host, the supreme point in Catholic ritual, that one fully realised the common mind that swallowed up all individuality in the immense throng. Flung together in their hundreds of thousands, like the sands on the seashore, these people were merely parts of a great organism which was performing a great act of faith, with no more ego in them than the sands themselves.

IRISH TIMES

Prior to the closing ceremony a special blessing by Pope Pius XI broadcasting directly from the Vatican was relayed to the huge congregation.‭ ‬This marked the culmination of a series of events held over the previous four days, which saw scenes of unprecedented devotion by the Catholics of Ireland.  The Eucharistic Congress entered Catholic folk memory and remained the greatest public gathering in Ireland until the visit of Pope John Paul II in‭ 1979, which also took place in the Phoenix Park.

25‭ June 1731: The Dublin Society was founded on this day. The society was originally founded by members of the Dublin Philosophical Society as the 'Dublin Society for improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other Useful Arts'. On 8 July 1731 - a couple of weeks after initial foundation - the designation 'and Sciences' was added to the end of its name.

The aim of the Society's founders was to improve Ireland's economic condition by promoting the development of Agriculture,‭ Arts, Science and Industry. Initially confined to publishing pamphlets on new discoveries and best practice, the Society as a publishing house developed and broadened its remit to include scientific journals and books. 

It grew out of the‭ 18th century desire for agricultural and industrial improvement. Membership reached 300 by the 1740s, with a royal charter being received in 1750. The society offered grants (‘premiums’) for land reclamation, livestock breeding, fisheries, and textiles. The ‘Royal’ title was added in 1820 and today the RDS has its HQ at Simmonscourt in Ballsbridge, Dublin where it host hundreds of events throughout the year incl the Horse Show.

Several gentlemen having agreed to meet in the Philosophical Rooms in Trinity College Dublin in order to promote Improvements of all kinds,‭ ‬and Dr. Stephens being desired, took the Chair. It was proposed and unanimously agreed unto, to form a Society, by the name of the Dublin Society, for improving Husbandry, Manufactures, and other useful arts. 

It was proposed and resolved,‭ that all the present, and all such who should become members of the Society, shall subscribe their names to a Paper, containing their agreement to form a Society for the purposes aforesaid. 

Ordered that a Committee of all the members present do meet next Thursday.,‭ in the Philosophical Rooms in Trinity College Dublin to consider of a Plan or Rules for the Government of the Society, any three thereof to be a Quorum, and that notice be sent to the members in Town, the day before the time for meeting. The Society adjourned to this day fortnight.

Present:‭ ‬Judge Ward. Dr. Stephens.
Sir Th.‭ ‬Molyneux. Dr. Magnaten.
Th.‭ ‬Upton, Esq. Dr. [John] Madden.
John Pratt,‭ ‬Esq.‭ ‬Dr. Lehunte.
Rich.‭ Warburton, Esq. Mr. Walton.
Rev.‭ Dr. Whitecomb. Mr. Prior.
Arthur Dobs,‭ ‬Esq. W. Maple.

A HISTORY OF THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY
HENRY F.‭ BERRY

24‭ June 1798: The Battle of Castlecomer on this day. The picturesque County Kilkenny town of Castlecomer was burnt to the ground as the Army of the United Irishmen from Wexford clashed with the Crown Forces in the streets of the town. In the wake of the defeat at Vinegar Hill on 21 June it was decided by the Insurgents to leave County Wexford and advance on Castlecomer where it was hoped the militant colliers there would join them. In the event quite a few did but were of limited fighting value given the immediacy of the situation, not helped by the fact that town was already garrisoned by 300 soldiers under Walter Butler, a local Bigwig and the future 18th Earl of Ormonde.

‭Major General Charles Asgil of the British Army advanced from Kilkenny City with about
‭ 1,000 men to relieve the troops defending Castlecomer. He sent ahead some 100 men to augment the 300 or so already there under Butler’s command.

The Insurgents, with about 8,000 men advanced upon the town in two columns,‭ ‬one under Father Murphy himself and the other under Miles Byrne. They eventually joined forces within the town and drew up plans to assault by storm Castlecomer House that still held out. But the appearance of Asgil’s relief force on the heights outside the town meant that the Wexfordmen had to turn their attention to that quarter. The British General opened up with artillery to cover the retreat of the trapped garrison. The United Irishmen fell back under this sustained under fire as Asgil held his ground long enough for his trapped soldiers & supporters in the town to get out and then he marched away.

Early in the morning of the‭ ‬24th the rebel troops diminished by desertion to about 8,000 descended from the heights and advancing towards Castlecomer defeated a body of about two hundred and fifty men at a place called Coolbawn a mile and a half from that town which they entered with the slaughter of about fifty Loyalists. The town was set on fire – and of this conflagration each party accuses the other. The General arriving at length with his army, fired with his artillery on the streets and houses not knowing that many Loyalists were still in the place who were making a desperate defence to prevent their families and friends from falling into the enemies hands. This firing however determined the rebels to retire from the town about four O'clock in the afternoon, which furnished an opportunity to Protestants there assembled to retreat with the general to Kilkenny, but they were obliged to leave their good s a prey to the enemy who took full possession of the place as soon as the Royal Army retreated. 
Musgrave’s History of the Rebellion in Ireland,‭ in the Year 1798

The forces Loyal to the Crown had a lucky escape as the Loyalists within and the troops without would have been overwhelmed had the relative numbers been known in the Insurgent camp.‭ ‬But an early morning fog and the smoke of the buildings alight within the town along with the firing of the guns masked the weakness of the Loyalist position. In the event Murphy decided that it was no use proceeding into areas where the prospects of revolt were so poor and after a brief foray into County Laois it was decided to return to Wexford and fight it out there.

23 June 1985: The destruction of Air India flight 182 on this day. The plane was flying from Toronto, Canada to Delhi, India via London, England. It was some 120 miles off the south west coast of Ireland at an altitude of 31,000 feet when at 8.13am the plane disappeared off the radar screen of Air Traffic Control at Shannon airport. It had exploded - killing all on board - 329 lives were lost, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 Britons, and 24 Indians. 80 were children. The majority of the victims were Canadian citizens of Indian ancestry. The bombing of Air India 182 occurred at the same time as the Narita airport bombing. Investigators believe that the two plots were linked, and that the group responsible was aiming for a double bombing. However, the bomb at Narita exploded before it could be loaded onto the plane.

Canadian law enforcement determined that the main suspects in the bombing were members of the Sikh group Babbar Khalsa. The attack is thought to have been a retaliation against India for the operation carried out by the Indian Army Operation Blue Star to flush out several hundred Sikh Militants who were within the premises of the Golden Temple and the surrounding structures ordered by the Prime Minister Indira Ghandi. Though a handful of members were arrested and tried, Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national, remains the only person legally convicted of involvement in the bombing. Singh pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for building the bombs that exploded aboard Flight 182 and at Narita.

The subsequent investigation and prosecution lasted almost twenty years and was the most expensive trial in Canadian history, costing nearly130 million Canadian dollars.

131 bodies were recovered from the sea. It was one of the biggest operations in the history of the State to recover the bodies which was undertaken by the Irish Navy. The L.É. AISLING navy ship, under the command of Lieutenant Commander James Robinson, was one of the first vessels on scene. The RAF and the Royal Navy also helped to recover the bodies and debris from the site which extended over a large area of the sea.

Every year, a remembrance ceremony is held in Cork at the memorial garden and sundial in Ahakista in County Cork [above]

22 June 1921: King George V opened the first session of the Northern Ireland Parliament in Belfast on this day, thus formally dividing Ireland into two political entities.

The genesis of the division lay in the Ulster Unionists opposition to the establishment of a Home Rule Parliament in Ireland. Their campaign against it dated back to 1886 when the British Prime Minister Gladstone had first brought a Bill before the British Parliament for its introduction. The bill was defeated and while it passed the House of Commons in 1893 it fell in the Lords.

However in 1909 the House of Lords had blocked the introduction of the Budget brought in by the Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George. The British Government then brought in legislation to limit the power of the House of Lords to block a Bill passed by the Lower House to two parliamentary sessions and no more. This momentous change meant that sooner or later a new Home Rule Bill was bound to be passed and implemented.

In 1912 the Ulster Unionists organised themselves in para-military formations under an organisation known as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Armed with weapons from Germany and Austria-Hungary they defied British Government attempts to introduce Home Rule for all of Ireland. The outbreak of the Great War stymied a looming Civil War situation and while Home Rule was passed in September 1914 it was suspended for the duration of the War.

With the ending of the Great War the issue of where Ulster stood in relation to the rest of Ireland once again came to the fore. By that stage the Ulster Unionist Council had accepted the concept of Home Rule if the six northern counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone were at least temporally excluded from its terms.

With the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1919 and the decline of British power throughout much of the Country the likelihood of a deal being struck between Unionists and Nationalists became more remote.

On this basis the British Government decided to proceed with a plan to put before its Parliament a Bill to partition Ireland into two polities – Northern Ireland & Southern Ireland.

Consequently after the General Election of May 1921 in which unionist candidates won most of the seats in the Six Counties the formation of a northern State centred on Belfast was proceeded with.

It was on this basis that King George V was dispatched to the North to officiate at the opening of Northern Parliament on 22 June 1921 in Belfast’s City Hall.

Addressing the members of the Senate and House of Commons from his throne he said:

"For all those who love Ireland, as I do with all my heart, this is a profoundly moving occasion in Irish history. My memories of the Irish people date back to the time when I spent many happy days in Ireland as midshipman. My affection for the Irish people has been deepened by the successive visits since that time, and I have watched with constant sympathy the course of their affairs.

"I could not have allowed myself to give Ireland by deputy alone my earnest prayers and good wishes in the new era which opens with this ceremony, and I have therefore come in person, as the Head of the Empire, to inaugurate this Parliament on Irish soil.

"I inaugurate it with deep-felt hope, and I feel assured that you will do your utmost to make it an instrument of happiness and good government for all parts of the community which you represent.

"This is a great and critical occasion in the history of the Six Counties, but not for the Six Counties alone for every thing which interest them touches Ireland, and everything which touches Ireland finds an echo in the remotest part of the Empire....

21 June 1798: The Battle of Vinegar Hill/Cath Chnoc Fhíodh na gCaor was fought on this day. The engagement was fought near the town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford. While not the last battle of the Rising of that year it was the most decisive - for after that date there was no real hope that the Insurrection could succeed without Foreign Intervention.

After the outbreak of the Rising in May under the United Irishmen forces were organised to try and break out of County Wexford and spread the Revolt. These attempts though were repulsed and eventually the Insurgents main force fell back on Vinegar Hill for a final stand.

Here perhaps 20,000 men women and children had gathered in a huge makeshift camp to escape the depredations of the Military. They were in a blood lust against those who they considered to be ‘rebels’. Massacres and atrocities had been committed by people on both sides but the general consensus is that the Yeomanry and Militia were the worst and the hapless peasants of the Countryside the chief victims.*

A number of columns of the British Army under General Lake advanced upon Enniscorthy from various points on the compass. His intention was to completely surround the town and hill and force a capitulation. Lake divided his force into four columns to accomplish this; three columns, under Generals Dundas, Duff and Needham were to assault Vinegar Hill, while the fourth column, under General Johnson, was to storm Enniscorthy and its bridge.

The insurgents had done little or nothing to prepare their defenses even though a number of weeks had elapsed since they occupied the position.

Miles Byrne was:

 surprised to find that scarcely anything had been done to make formidable against the enemy; that vast fences and ditches that surround it on three sides and which should have been levelled to the ground for at least a cannon shot, or half a mile of distance, were all left untouched. The English forces availing themselves of these defences advanced from field to field, bringing with  them their cannon which they placed to great advantage behind and under cover of the hedges and fences, whilst our men were exposed to a terrible fire from their artillery and small arms without being able to drive them back from their strongholds in those fields.

The battle began at dawn with an artillery bombardment by the British. This had a devastating impact on the masses of people gathered on the hill and it can only be expected that many took any opportunity they had to flee to safety. Sometime after 7 am the Infantry commenced their Advance. As the day wore on the net tightened and despite two charges by the pikemen it was hopeless against such a well armed force. Eventually those that could made a break for it as General Needham was unable to close in on his assigned position in time and a gap was open to which to escape. Through it flowed a mixture of fighters and peasants who had the incentive to get out while the going was good.

But many others were either too tired, shocked or plain terrified to risk it and remained to await their fate. It was not to be a good one. When the hill fell many were put to the sword or shot out of hand. Recent archaeological scanning of the site indicates large pits on the north side of the hill that are believed to be mass graves of those who were captured on that day. Though the graves have not yet been excavated perhaps the remains of 1,000 to 2,000 unfortunates are believed to be buried under the soil of Vinegar Hill.

Thomas Cloney [an envoy from Wexford]  came within a mile of Enniscorthy in the aftermath of the Battle and saw:

The dead and dying were scattered promiscuously in the fields, in dykes, on the roads, or wherever chance had directed their last steps. ... In one place we beheld some men with arms and some with legs off, and others cruelly mutilated in various ways; horses with their necks broken, and their cars with women and children under them, either dead or dying in the road and ditches, where in their precipitate flight they had been upset. 

In the town of Enniscorthy there had also been fierce fighting and much of the town burnt,
Edward Hay saw:

the house which had been used as an hospital by the insurgents, and which was set on fire with all the patients in it, continued burning until next morning, when I saw a part of a corpse still hissing in the embers.

* The accounts you see of the numbers of enemy destroyed  in every action are, I conclude greatly exaggerated. From my own knowledge of military affairs I am sure a very small proportion of them only could be killed in battle and I am much afraid that any man in a brown coat who is found within several miles of the field of action, is butchered without discrimination.
Marquis Cornwallis to the Duke of Portland 28 June 1798.

Quotes from Charles Dixon: The Wexford Rising in 1798: Its causes and its course.

20 June 1763: Theobald Wolfe Tone was born on this day. His birth took place in the City of Dublin at 44 Stafford St – a house situated opposite the old St Mary’s Church of Ireland just off Mary St on the north side of the Liffey. His parents were Peter and Margaret Tone. His father was from near Clane in Co Kildare and his mother originally from Drogheda, Co Louth. Theobald was their first born. In all they had 16 children of whom 5 survived till adulthood. His parents were of the Established Church and came from respectable backgrounds but were not very well off. His father held a position as an Inspector of Globes with the Paving Board of Dublin Corporation that generated a salary of some £50 per annum. Wolfe Tone considered them to be pretty much like other people. 

Until he reached adulthood Wolfe Tone led a fairly regular existence. He was a good scholar but inclined to be a somewhat indifferent student. As a young man he hankered after becoming a soldier and pleaded with his father to release him from his studies to enter Trinity College. His appetite was whetted by skipping off from class and observing the drill and parades carried out in the Phoenix Park by the regiments based in Dublin. He wanted to apply for a career in the British Army, then at war with the American Revolutionaries. His father refused and Wolfe Tone duly entered the College and studied for a Law Degree. 

After an unhappy love affair in the summer of 1785 Wolfe Tone first set eyes on Matilda (Martha) Witherington. She was very pretty and some 15 years old. She lived on Grafton St with her father, a draper by trade. They quickly fell in love and eloped. At first they lived near her family but after a family quarrel he removed himself to Bodenstown with his bride and resided there for a while. After study in London he returned home and was called to the Bar in early 1789. He had returned to Dublin, reconciled himself to his wife’s family and joined the Leinster Circuit. While competent he was soon bored and the more exciting public arena of Politics now drew his attention. And never was politics more exciting.

However it was only in the wake of the Revolution in France that he began to slowly but surely realise that the Ascendancy here would never accept serious Reform but at the point of a sword and in the wake of a Revolution from within Ireland itself. It took a couple of years for the import of the upheavals in France to sink in here in Ireland. He wrote that:

The French revolution became the test of every man’s political creed and the nation was fairly divided into two great parties, the aristocrats and the democrats…it is needless to say that I was a democrat from the very commencement.

From then on Wolfe Tone slowly but surely turned his attention towards triggering a Revolt in Ireland to overthrow the Protestant Ascendency by violent means and establishing an Independent Republic free of religious dissension and England’s Rule.

18 June 1815: The Battle of Waterloo took place on this day. This great battle was fought out some 10 kilometres south of the Belgic city of Brussels, along the Ridge of Mont St Jean and on the fields to the south and east of it. The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by the combined armies of the Duke of Wellington [above] of the British & Allied Armies and Marshal Blucher leading the forces of Prussia. It was a battle in which men of many nations participated. Men from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the United Provinces (Holland + Belgium), Hanover, Wurttemberg, Prussia and other minor German states fought the forces of France to decide the fate of Europe.

Many soldiers in the British Army were recruited in Ireland though surprisingly few regiments with ‘Irish’ in their title played a part on the day. The Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin and spent much his early life in Ireland, his family hailing from Co Meath. At least three infantry or cavalry brigades were led by Anglo-Irish generals. Commanding the 9th British Infantry Brigade was Major General Sir Denis Pack, a native of County Kilkenny, Major General Sir William Ponsonby (KIA) led the 2nd British (Union) Cavalry Brigade, so-called because it included an English, a Scottish and an Irish regiment . Major General Sir John Ormsby Vandeleur led the 4th British Cavalry Brigade, a light cavalry formation. There were also some five battalion commanders with Irish connections who served in the Waterloo campaign. However it was in the lower ranks of the British Army that the highest number of men who were either from Ireland or of Irish origin served.

While the British Army had 10 infantry regiments and 4 cavalry ones with ‘Irish’ in their description only three actually saw service in this campaign: 1st Battalion, 27th (Inniskilling) Foot; 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons and the 18th (King's Irish) Hussars. They all saw heavy action in the actual battle, the 27th in particular taking huge casualties whilst in Square in the front line.

The British Army who fought that day fielded about 28,000 men drawn from England & Wales, Scotland and Ireland. At that time the Irish (Catholic, Protestant & Dissenter) comprised some 38% of the population of these islands. That ratio was well reflected in the ranks of the military force present at Waterloo with the Irish having a strong presence pretty well across the board in all arms Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery. Most of these were poor men, labourers and weavers who found in the Army a relatively secure measure of employment and shelter.

By all accounts the Irish were good fighters but rightly or wrongly were seen as undisciplined off the battlefield. Many were from Catholic households but the Protestant population were represented as best we can judge in numbers that matched their proportion of the Country’s population. The rank and file were seen as the ‘scum of the earth’ by Wellington and probably by most of the Officer Class too. In some respects he was right as many were there because they were outcasts and misfits from civil society or rough men who sought a fighting career. But they could fight and fight well - and that's what they were there to do.

When the battle ended that evening some 7,500 men of the British Army laid dead, dying or severely wounded on the battlefield - some 28% of the force engaged. On a per capita basis that would be around 3,000 or so men from Ireland who fell that day - a heavy enough toll. On the other hand the population of the island was some Six Million souls in 1815 so while a severe loss to those that had family in the Military it would not have been seen as a National cause for grief. Indeed many at home might well have wished for a French Victory that day - Daniel O’Connell being one of them. 

There are a number of roads and landmarks in Ireland still that commemorate the battle that day. The most imposing being the Wellington Monument in the Phoenix Park in Dublin that commemorates the Duke of Wellington’s Victories. The halfpenny footbridge over the river Liffey in Dublin City Centre is officially ‘Wellington’ bridge and in the suburbs south of the city are the Wellington and Waterloo roads. In Trim Co Meath where his family hailed from there is also a monument to honour him. 

But while still a Hero in Britain his legacy in most of Ireland is less sure given his vehement opposition to Catholic emancipation and his eventual sour acceptance of its political necessity. If Waterloo is remembered at all here its for it marking the end of Napoleon Bonaparte’s career rather than any part that Ireland played in his Downfall.

Next to the formidable Duke the Irishman who is most worthy of mention was Sergeant James Graham of 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards from Clones Co Monaghan. He helped in closing the gates of the Hougoumont Farmhouse which was a vital strategic point on the battlefield, positioned out in front of the right of the allied line. It was attacked throughout the day by thousands of French infantrymen, but held out to the end. The Duke nominated him as 'the bravest of the Brave' and mentioned in him in his Supplementary Dispatches on the Battle:

He assisted Lieutenant-colonel Macdonnell* in closing the gates, which had been left open for the purpose of communication, and which the enemy were in the act of forcing. His brother, a corporal in the regiment, was lying wounded in a barn, which was on fire, and Graham removed him so as to be secure from the fire, and then returned to his duty.

* Coldstream Guards and the senior British Officer at Hougoumont.

17‭ ‬June 1959: Éamon de Valera was elected President of Ireland on this day. The contest for the highest Office in the Republic was between him and General Sean Mc Eoin from the Fine Gael Party, who had previously ran for the Office in 1945 and had been defeated. He like Dev had been active in the War of Independence but they had taken opposite sides in the Civil War of 1922 -23. The number of people eligible to vote was 1,678,450, of which 979,628 chose to exercise their Franchise. This represented a turnout of 58.4 %. Of the total numbers of votes cast 538,003 voted in favour of De Valera and 417,536 voted for Mc Eoin. 

‘De Valera won a majority of the vote in every constituency bar the northern Dublin city constituencies, Longford-Westmeath, which Mac Eoin had represented for over ten years, and Cork West, a strong Fine Gael area. As in the previous election, Mac Eoin's best results were in the Longford and surrounding areas, with strong results also where de Valera didn't win majorities in Dublin. De Valera's vote was strongest in Clare, Galway and Donegal - his share reaching 69% in parts of the latter two counties.'

http://irishpoliticalmaps.blogspot.ie/2011/10/irish-presidential-election-1959.html

On the same day was also held a Referendum to abolish Proportional Representation‭ - but here the tide of public opinion swung against Dev and it went down to defeat. 

The following summary of the principal proposals in the Third Amendment of the Constitution Bill,‭ 1958, was circulated for the information of voters:

At present,‭ members of Dáil Éireann are elected on a system of proportional representation for constituencies returning at least three members, each voter having a single transferable vote.

It is proposed in the Bill to abolish the system of proportional representation and to adopt,‭ instead, a system of single-member constituencies, ‬each voter having a single non- transferable vote. It is also proposed in the Bill to set up a Commission for the determination and revision of the constituencies, instead of having this done by the Oireachtas, as at present.

The total number of votes recorded in favour of the proposal contained in the Bill was‭ 453,322 and the total number of votes recorded against the proposal was 486,989. The people did not, therefore, approve the proposal.

Eamon De Valera thus became the third President of Ireland.‭ ‬He was again elected in 1966 and retired from the post and active politics in 1973. He died in 1975.

16‭ June 1929: 'Bloomsday' was first celebrated on this day. In one of the earliest Bloomsday celebrations, Sylvia Beach, publisher of James Joyce's classic novel Ulysses organised a Ulysses lunch with her partner Adrienne Monnier in France in June 1929. 

The first Bloomsday celebrated in Ireland was in‭ ‬1954,‭ the fiftieth anniversary of the first Bloomsday. The eccentric writers Patrick Kavanagh and Flann O’Brien visited locations such as the Martello Tower at Sandycove, Davy Byrne’s pub, and 7 Eccles Street where the fictional Leopold Bloom lived with his wife Molly. They spent part of their tour reading extracts from Ulysses and drinking a great deal as they went along!

"It wasn't until‭ ‬1954,‭ ‬its‭ ‬50th anniversary,‭ ‬that John Ryan,‭ ‬restaurant owner and publisher of the literary periodical Envoy,‭ ‬and his literary friends,‭ ‬novelist Brian O'Nolan and poets Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin,‭ ‬resurrected Bloomsday in Ireland. There are photos at the National Library in Dublin…of their pilgrimage in two horse-cabs to various locations in Ulysses and several pubs."

Fritzi Horstman

Bloomsday celebrates the day on which the narrative of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place,‭ 16 June 1904, the day on which it is believed that Joyce first went out with his future wife, Nora Barnacle. The day is named after Leopold Bloom, the central character in Ulysses. The novel follows the life and thoughts of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus (his alter ego)along with a host of other characters – real and fictional – from 8 am on 16 June through to the early hours of the following morning. 

An Extract:

As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the parapet.‭ ‬Brewery barge with export stout.‭ ‬England. Sea air sours it, I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter,‭ ‬wonderful.‭ ‬Rats get in too.‭ ‬Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking that! Rats: vats. Well of course if we knew all the things.

Episode‭ ‬8 – ‘Lestrygonians’

15 June 1919: The British aviators John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown made the first non-stop heavier than air flight across the Atlantic on this day. They flew a modified Vickers Vimy bomber plane from St. John’s Newfoundland to Clifden, Co Galway thus winning the Daily Mail prize of £10,000. The lucrative prize had been up for grabs since 1913 when the Daily Mail first proposed the idea. Their offer ran as follows:
"the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland and land at any point in Great Britain or Ireland" in 72 continuous hours".

Both men had served as Aviators in the Great War and both had been shot down and captured, Alcock by the Turks and Brown by the Germans. During his captivity Alcock determined that if he survived the War he would go for it. As Fortune had it both men were at a loose end after their release and return home. Alcock approached Vickers with the idea of backing the attempt and teamed up with Brown as his co pilot for the crossing.

Several teams had entered the competition and when Alcock and Brown arrived in St Johns Newfoundland the Handley Page aircraft team were in the final stages of testing their machine for the flight but their leader, Admiral Mark Kerr, was determined not to take off until the plane was in perfect condition. The Vickers team quickly assembled their plane and at around 1:45 p.m. on 14 June, whilst the Handley Page team were conducting yet another test, the Vickers plane took off from Lester's Field.

The flight nearly ended in disaster several times owing to engine trouble, fog, snow and ice. It was only saved by Brown's continual climbing out on the wings to remove ice from the engine air intakes and by Alcock's excellent piloting despite extremely poor visibility at times and even snow filling the open cockpit. The aircraft was badly damaged upon arrival due to the attempt to land in what appeared from the air to be a suitable green field but which turned out to be the bog on Derrygimlagh Moor, near Clifden Co Galway,  but neither of the airmen was hurt.

The news of the adventure spread like wildfire and the two men were received as heroes in London. For their accomplishment, they were presented with Lord Northcliffe's Daily Mail prize of £10,000 by Winston Churchill, who was then Britain's Secretary of State. A few days later, both men were knighted at Buckingham Palace by King George V, for recognition of their pioneering achievement.
Alcock was tragically killed some months later in December 1919 while flying to the Paris Air Show. Brown lived on until 1948.

14‭ June 1884: Count John McCormack was born on this day. He is considered the greatest singer Ireland has ever produced. He was the fourth of eleven children born to Hannah and Andrew McCormack, and one of the five to survive childhood. Though his own parents hailed from Scotland his paternal Grandfather was originally from County Sligo. He was educated locally by the Marists in Athlone where his singing abilities were first recognised. 

I was nine and a slip of a lad and shy.‭ ‬It was in the Marist brothers‭' school on a feast day, when Dr. Woodlock, Bishop of Clonmacnoise, was the guest of honour. I'll not forget the sensation at hearing the words, which Brother Hugh whispered in my ear. ‘We want you to sing, John, for Bishop Woodlock’. With that the good man lifted me upon a table, and left me looking at the gathering…I think they must have liked it. They seemed to. I had no extensive repertoire, but what I knew I knew. And the singing spirit must have been there. Like the man born to be hanged, I possibly was intended to sing.

Afterwards he won a Scholarship to study at the Diocesan College in Summerhill County Sligo.‭ He completed his studies there in 1902. After considering trying his hand at various lines of work he was offered a position with the Palestrina Choir in Dublin’s Pro Cathedral. Vincent O’Brien, the choir master & organist there, saw the great potential in him and recommended for the position of Tenor with the Choir.

He was organist of the Marlborough Street Cathedral,‭ in Dublin; a splendid musician, a fine man, and a staunch friend. He had vision and appeared, intuitively, to feel that all I needed was study and opportunity to achieve a goal worthy of serious aspiration.‬ Ballynahinch/

It was the beginning of a hugely successful career that saw him perform around the World to International acclaim.‭ He was hugely popular in the USA in the 1920s and his fame fore shadowed that of singers like Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley in the fame he achieved at that time. 

He is best remembered at home though for his magnificent performance of César Franck's‭ Panis Angelicus to the hundreds of thousands who thronged Dublin's Phoenix Park for the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. Pope Pius XI made him a Count of the Church in 1928. He died in Dublin in 1945 and is buried in Deans Grange Cemetery Dublin.

Sculpture by Elizabeth Kane in Iveagh Gardens, Dublin 2.

13‭ June 1798: The Battle of Ballynahinch/Baile na hInse, (town of the isle) was fought on this day. This battle occurred in County Down between the insurgents of the United Irishman under General Henry Munro, who was actually a linen merchant from Lisburn and the forces of Crown under General Nugent. The town had been seized some days previously by local insurgents but on the day before the battle a well-armed force of some 2,000 military under Nugent entered it and set about upending the place. That evening there was a great deal of skirmishing and much of Ballynahinch was ransacked as the soldiers and Yeomanry engaged in drinking and revelry. The insurgents had established themselves on the hills to the south and east of the town and had in all about 5,000 men under arms. However most were armed only with pikes and any attempt to meet the Crown Forces in open battle was bound to be a massacre. The superior firepower along with the discipline and cohesion of the soldiers was bound to tell against the insurgents if the British Army was to march out the next morning in line of battle. 

Munro’s officers urged him to launch a night attack upon the town and catch the enemy off guard,‭ as they were audibly not in a coherent state that night anyway to resist a determined assault. But he hesitated to do so as he did not have confidence in his men that they could carry off with any degree of certainty such a risky manoeuvre as a night attack. So the hours of darkness slipped away and with it a substantial number of the men who had gathered under the flag of the United Irishmen. Many of them in turn lacked confidence in Munro’s judgement and his obvious lack of experience. They felt that defeat was all but inevitable if the Crown Forces gained the initiative. It was readily apparent that when Nugent marched his men out the next day that the odds would be stacked against them. Even though the United Irishmen had the numbers the Crown Forces would be able to use their Combined Arms tactics of Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery to devastating effect upon them.

An eyewitness reported:
A mixed and motley multitude met the eye.‭ They wore no uniforms, yet they presented a tolerably decent appearance, being dressed no doubt in their Sunday clothes, some better and some worse. The only thing in which they all concurred was the wearing of the green, almost every individual having a knot of ribbon of that colour, sometimes intermixed with yellow in his hat.

In their arms there was as great a diversity as in their dress.‭ By far the majority of them had pikes, which were truly formidable instruments in close fight, but of no use in distant warfare ... others wore swords, generally of the least efficient kind, and some had merely pitchforks.

At daylight Munro finally decided to attack and launched his men against the enemy inside the town.‭ ‬Bloody hand to hand fighting ensued and the fortunes of war ebbed and flowed amongst the burning buildings of the place. At one stage it looked like Victory lay within the grasp of the United Irishmen as the Crown Forces fell back. But they eventually rallied and counterattacked and broke the back of the pikemens brave charges upon their positions.  

In the meantime Nugent had directed other columns to come round in the rear of the hillside camps of his opponents and turn their positions.‭ ‬A detachment from the garrison in Downpatrick had arrived under Colonel Stapelton and circled the town to attack Montalto, a commanding eminence skirted by a thick wood. This was where Munro had established his HQ some days prior to the battle.

These developments unnerved his men and caught between the obvious superiority now being gained by the military within the town and the imminent closing off of any viable avenue of escape.‭ ‬This led to the collapse of their morale and a precipitate retreat away from Ballynahinch by the survivors of the battle.‭ ‬Munro attempted to rally his men on Ednavady Hill outside the town but all he could muster by that stage was a motley force of about 150‭ ‬combatants. With the Crown Forces closing in for the kill they decided to make a break for it and scatter,‭ ‬every man for himself. Munro sought refuge nearby and evaded capture for a few days.

‭ ‬But he was taken through betrayal,‭ ‬brought back to Lisburn and tried and executed within a very short period of time. He was hanged almost within view of his own front door and his head was placed upon display in the Market Square. The town of Ballynahinch itself lay in ruins with almost half the houses within it burned during the engagement and its aftermath. 

This battle to all intents and purposes ended organised resistance in County Down.‭ ‬In the following days and weeks the military spread out across the Countryside, inflicting many atrocities upon those they suspected of being active participants or silent supporters of the Rising.

Painting: Battle of Ballynahinch by Thomas Robinson

12 June 1919 - Eamon De Valera arrived back in New York - the city of his Birth. At around midnight on 11/12 June a rather bedraggled man walked into an Irish bar on 10th Avenue New York City - his aim - to begin a Crusade for the recognition of an Independent Irish Republic. That man was Eamon De Valera and his travels across America over the next 18 months were to become the stuff of Legend and controversy ever since.

His journey began in Dublin some weeks before when he slipped out of the city incognito and made his way to Liverpool to catch a boat the SS Lapland sailing to America. He was a wanted man after escaping from Lincoln jail in England some months previously and was on the run from the British. He kept undercover in a dingy cabin whilst aboard until just before he was spirited ashore to begin the first steps of his Mission.

As the last surviving Commandant of the Leaders of 1916 he was chosen as the príomh aire [President of Dáil Éireann] in April 1919 after his return from captivity in England. However  his chances of being captured again were high in Ireland. Dev was an excellent public speaker and a natural leader of men. To make the movement for Irish Independence a success it was deemed necessary to seek International recognition abroad and secure large funds from the Irish Diaspora to help the propaganda and war effort. He could do little in Ireland where his talents would be of limited use but in America he would be able to speak freely to push Ireland’s Cause and gain swathes of publicity on a huge stage.

 Dev was privately quite a self effacing man - he was by no means flamboyant. In America that was no path to success. Soon after arriving one of his Mentors [Joseph McGarrity] suggested to him that carrying his own luggage around and calling himself the title ‘President of the Ministry of Dáil Éireann’ was a dead end. He took him to a tailors and had him outfitted with a set of the finest suits - the Armanis’ of their day if you will - told him to not carry any bags - the President of a Country does not go around carry his own bags  - and to style himself ‘The President of Ireland’!

Well it worked because he started getting attention and drawing huge crowds across the USA to hear him speak. For good measure he based himself in the finest hotel in America - the Waldorf - Astoria in New York city - as befitted the President of a Country visiting the United States of America. However his newly discovered status was a surprise to the Old Guard of Fenian’s there - led by Judge Daniel Florence Cohalan and John Devoy [above] who basically viewed him as an upstart. They had ruled the roost there for years and wanted it kept that way.

By the time he returned to Ireland in December 1920 Dev had achieved quite a lot - especially financially in helping to raise millions of dollars for Irish Independence and making Ireland a front page issue with the US Press Corps. He did not however gain the support of either the Democrats or Republicans to recognise Ireland as an Independent Nation  in the 1920 Presidential Campaign - but at least he made them aware of it.  His biggest failure though was his inability to mend fences with the Fenian faction led by Cohalan and Devoy. It can be said that De Valera was a man who throughout his life took his own council and did what he thought was best -  problem was his opponents were of a similar calibre - neither side was blameless!

On a personal level he did  however get to meet his mother Catherine (Kate) who lived in Rochester New York State and had since re married since she last saw her son back in the 1880s before he was taken home to Ireland. That reunion gave him great personal satisfaction. Dev returned to the USA a number of times over the years including attending the tragic funeral of John F Kennedy in November 1963 and the following year he paid an official State visit to Washington DC where he addressed the Houses of Congress. However no time there had such an impact on him personally [other than his birth] or politically as the time he spent in the Land of the Free on his epic journeys across America in the years 1919 & 1920.