31 May 1941 – The German bombing of the North Strand in Dublin by the Luftwaffe on this day. 28 were killed  & over 90 were injured, over 300 houses were destroyed or damaged in the attack. Smaller bombs damaged the American Embassy and Áras an Uachtarain the official home of President Douglas Hyde in the Phoenix Park. The bombing was in all probability accidental and the German Government apologised in June 1941 for the attack. 

The first fifteen burials took place on 4 June  incl. the internment of the tragic Brown family in their native Drumcooley, outside Edenderry Co Offaly . Harry Brown, who lived on the North Strand was a member of the Local Defense Force and was amongst the dead, as was his 65-year-old mother, Mary, his wife Mary (or Mollie as she was known, 32) and their children Maureen (7), Ann (5), Edward (3) and Angela (2).  On the same day the burial of eight more people took place  in Glasnevin and in Dean's Grange cemeteries in Dublin. Twelve of those killed were buried by Dublin Corporation at a Public Funeral on 5 June, at which Government members including Eamon De Valera attended. The service took place in the Church of St. Laurence O'Toole, Seville Place and was presided over by Archbishop McQuaid. 

An Taoiseach Eamon De Valera made the following statement in the Dáil on 5 June:

Members of the Dáil desired to be directly associated with the expression of sympathy already tendered by the Government on behalf of the nation to the great number of our citizens who have been so cruelly bereaved by the recent bombing. Although a complete survey has not yet been possible, the latest report which I have received is that 27 persons were killed outright or subsequently died; 45 were wounded or received other serious bodily injury and are still in hospital; 25 houses were completely destroyed and 300 so damaged as to be unfit for habitation, leaving many hundreds of our people homeless. It has been for all our citizens an occasion of profound sorrow in which the members of this House have fully shared. 

(Members rose in their places.)

The Dáil will also desire to be associated with the expression of sincere thanks which has gone out from the Government and from our whole community to the several voluntary organisations the devoted exertions of whose members helped to confine the extent of the disaster and have mitigated the sufferings of those affected by it. As I have already informed the public, a protest has been made to the German Government. The Dáil will not expect me, at the moment, to say more on this head.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1941-06-05/27/

Why these bombers ended up over Dublin is a mystery. Presumably they meant to bomb Belfast or Liverpool, became disorientated and ended up over Dublin where they were spotted by searchlights and fired upon by AA batteries. This probably confirmed them in their belief they were at least over a large urban area of enemy territory and they decided to drop their bombs here to lighten their load and allow them to make greater speed on the run back to their base in Occupied Europe.

 

30 May 1951: A General Election was held in the Irish Republic. The 1st Inter-Party Government under John A. Costello was defeated and Eamon De Valera was elected once again as Taoiseach.

TDs returned:

Fianna Fáil (Eamon de Valera): 69

Fine Gael (Richard Mulcahy)*: 40

Labour (William Norton): 16

Clann na Talmhan (Michael Donnellan): 6

Clann na Poblachta (Seán MacBride): 2

Independents: 14

* Head of FG but not of the Government 

The general election of 1951 was caused by a number of crises within the First Inter-Party Government, most notably the Mother and Child Scheme. While the whole affair, which saw the resignation of the Minister for Health, Noël Browne, was not entirely to blame for the collapse of the government it added to the pressure between the various political parties. There were other problems facing the country such as rising prices, balance of payments problems and two farmer TDs withdrew their support for the government because of rising milk prices.

The election result was inconclusive. Fianna Fáil's support increased by 61,000 votes, however the party only gained one extra seat. The coalition parties had mixed fortunes. Fine Gael were the big winners increasing to forty seats. The Labour Party patched up its differences with the National Labour Party and fought the election together but in spite of this the party lost seats. Clann na Poblachta were the big losers of the election. Three years earlier the party was a big political threat, but now it was shattered.

Fianna Fáil had not won enough seats to govern alone. However, the party was able to form a government with the support of Noël Browne, the former Minister for Health, and other Independent deputies.

De Valera was to stay in power for another 3 years until he lost to another Coalition headed by Fine Gael and Labour. His Nemesis on that occasion was none other than one John A. Costello!

 

29 May 1914: The loss of the passenger liner Empress of Ireland on this day. The ship sank within minutes of being involved in a collision with a Norwegian Storstad in the St Lawrence river, Canada. The vessel had only left port in Quebec a few hours previously, but it was under a new Captain and sailed into a bank of fog where after spotting the approaching Storstad it tried to avoid contact but was unable to do so. Both skippers blamed the other but a subsequent Court of Inquiry blamed the Norwegian for the impact. A verdict that the Norwegians never accepted.

Of the 1,477 persons on board the ship, 1,012 (840 passengers, 172 crew) died. The number of those who were killed is the largest of any Canadian maritime accident in peacetime.

Empress of Ireland was built by at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland and was launched in 1906.The liner had just begun her 96th sailing when she sank.

there were only 465 survivors, 4 of whom were children (the other 134 children were lost) and 41 of whom were women (the other 269 women were lost). The fact that most passengers were asleep at the time of the sinking (most not even awakened by the collision) also contributed to the loss of life when they were drowned in their cabins, most of them from the starboard side where the collision happened.

One of the survivors was Captain Kendall, who was on the bridge at the time, and quickly ordered the lifeboats to be launched. When Empress of Ireland lurched onto her side, he was thrown from the bridge into the water, and was taken down with her as she began to go under. Swimming to the surface, he clung to a wooden grate long enough for crew members aboard a nearby lifeboat to row over and pull him in. Immediately, he took command of the small boat, and began rescue operations.

The lifeboat's crew successfully pulled in many people from the water, and when the boat was full, Kendall ordered the crew to row to the lights of the mysterious vessel that had rammed them, so that the survivors could be dropped off. Kendall and the crew made a few more trips between the nearby Storstad and the wreckage to search for more survivors. After an hour or two, Kendall gave up, since any survivors who were still in the water would have either succumbed to the freezing cold or had drowned by then.

While the ship had an Irish name there was no specific Irish connection other than she was based in Liverpool and sailed weekly back and forth across the Atlantic. However outside of Ireland it was the case that Liverpool was the most ‘Irish’ city on Earth at that time and also one of the greatest shipping ports in the World. Many of the crew would undoubtedly have had Irish links.

Sadly this terrible disaster has been almost forgotten, wedged as it is between the far more well know maritime disasters of the Titanic [1912] and the Lusitania [1915] which resonated with the public mind down the years.

The wreck lies in 40 metres (130 ft) of water, making it accessible to divers. Many artifacts from the wreckage have been retrieved. Some are on display in the Empress of Ireland Pavilion at the Site historique maritime de la Pointe-au-Père in Rimouski, Quebec. The Canadian government has passed legislation to protect the site. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Empress_of_Ireland#Passengers_and_crew

 

28 May 1929: The death of the Irish Historian Alice Stopford Green on this day. Her father was the Rector of Kells  Co Meath where she was born in 1847. Despite the terrible conditions in the Country at the time Alice was raised in some comfort and educated herself through the use of her fathers extensive Library in Greek, German and metaphysics. At about the age of sixteen she was attacked by an eye ailment, rendering her temporarily blind. In 1873 her family moved to Dublin and there, hungry for knowledge, she started to attend lectures in physics at the College of Sciences. 

After her father’s death she moved with her mother and sisters to London, where she was noticed by an emerging Oxford historian, John Richard Green. In 1877 they were married. He made his name through the publication of a work called A short history of the English people which sold well. She acted as his secretary and assistant and things seemed to be going well. However in 1883 her husband suddenly died and she was on her own. Undeterred she set out to make a name for herself as an Historian in her own right and as a Woman of Letters. She had a formidable list of correspondents in the English speaking World. Her early works—a life of Henry II and a long two-volume study of Town life in the fifteenth century—confirmed her abilities as someone capable of producing serious works of History.

Though mildly interested in Irish affairs she resided in London and took a keen interest in Africa. Green found her niche editing the ‘Journal of the African Society’, which she did until 1906 and was of the opinion that Black Africans had their own cultures and traditions that should be highlighted and respected. The Boer War was something of a catalyst in how she viewed the Empire and she visited the prison camp on the island of St Helena where Boer prisoners-of-war were being held. In October 1900, returning to England aboard a steamship, she wrote to John Holt: I am certain if this Empire is to be held together at all that Englishmen will have to think more of knowledge v intelligence, & trust less to the argument.

With the growth of the Irish Revival at home and a renewed interest in Old Irish History she set about the study of it. Much influenced by her late husband’s focus on social and economic aspects of historical change she came out in 1908 with her seminal work The Making of Ireland and its Undoing 1200-1600. This was a bit of a shocker in the stuffy world of Irish Historiography and it seems ruffled quite a few feathers! But it did establish her as a prominent Irish historian as opposed to a British one.

With the growth of the Home Rule Crises in 1912 and the arming of the Northern Loyalists she became convinced that Nationalist Ireland had to reciprocate and helped along with Sir Roger Casement and others to land guns in Ireland to counter any attempt to Partition the Country. However it was only in 1918 that she moved to Dublin where she took up residence at 30 St Stephen’s Green where her house became a hub of social and political interaction. While she was an Irish historian and patriot she was not one of violent persuasion.

When the Treaty was signed in 1921 she fully supported it. In 1922 she won a seat in Seanad Éireann  as a Senator of the new Irish Free State. She remained as a member until her death. Her final major work was a History of the Irish State to 1014. Again in this volume she attempted to lay out the cultural, social and legal framework of Ireland and the National character and culture of the People up until that date and steered away from a political history of the period. 

Alice Stopford Green died on this day in 1929 - just two days short of her 82nd birthday. She is buried in Deans Grange cemetery Co Dublin.

 

27 May 1798: The Battle of Oulart Hill on this day. A  force of some 100 soldiers of the British Army was all but eliminated by the Wexford insurgents at Oulart Hill in that County. They had been dispatched from Wexford town to intimidate any actions by the disaffected countrymen of the locality who were taking to arms to defend themselves from the depredations of the Military. Columns of them were scouring the countryside, burning people out of their homes and murdering people whom they believed to be ‘Rebels’ against King George III. 

‘By mid-afternoon on Whitsunday, 27 May, having done a circuit of the district to gather their supporters, Fr. John Murphy, Curate of Boolavogue, United Irish Col. Edward Roche, Morgan Byrne of Castlesow and George Sparks of Blackwater assembled their men on Oulart Hill, in what appears to have been the implementation of an existing plan familiar to all. It was probably the original plan for raising North Wexford as part of the general national Rising that had collapsed in Dublin the previous Wednesday night. All the gunsmen along with perhaps 300 of the pikemen and men with sundry weapons were placed in a right-angled ambush on a corner and along its subtending ditches (fences). 

Government forces comprised 126 officers and men of the North Cork Militia (infantry) under Lieut. Col. Foote and Major Lombard supported by nineteen officers and men of the Shelmalier Yeoman Cavalry under Col. Le-Hunte. Almost half this latter body had been brought over to the rebel cause during the night by General Edward Roche who was Sergeant in the corps.'

The Battle of Oulart Hill, Context and Strategy by Brian Cleary.

http://oularthill.ie/

There was consternation in Wexford when news reached the town as the loss of this body of  troops left in almost defenseless. The Deputy Mayor wrote to Dublin appealing for help:

My Lord

 This has turned out a most unfortunate day. A party of rebels appearing in great force a few miles from Wexford, on the Dublin road were attacked by the grenadier company and other picked men to the amount of hundred of the North Cork Militia. The Major, four or five officers and all the party except three were cut off. Of the Officers Col. Foote only escaped. The Rebels, confident in their strength and flushed with their success are determined on the attack of the town of Wexford. By the loss of this day are numbers are so reduced that we much fear the event and request most earnestly that you will order such a reinforcement as may be sufficient to oppose them.

Ebenezer Jacob

Deputy Mayor of Wexford

The elimination of a full column of the Crown Forces by the men of the locality spread like wildfire throughout the County and further afield. It was indeed the spark which set the Wexford Rising off as it’s highly unlikely that a defeat here would have had any other outcome but a collapse in the morale of those in arms against the Crown and a hasty end of the whole affair.

Painting: The Battle of Oulart Hill by Fr. Edward Foran OSA (1861-1938)

 

11 May 1745: The battle of Fontenoy was fought on this day. It occurred in what was then part of the Austrian Netherlands but is now in present day Belgium. The French under Marshal De Saxe defeated the British - Dutch Army under the Duke of Cumberland.

The Allied Army was on the advance to relieve the siege of Tournai when they encountered the French under Marshal De Saxe drawn up in prepared positions. In all the French army numbered 93 battalions, 146 squadrons and 80 cannon, some 70,000 troops, of which 27 battalions and 17 squadrons were left to cover Tournai. In support of this position was a reserve of picked infantry and cavalry regiments, including the Irish Brigade, the “Wild Geese’’.

Cumberland reconnoitred the French position on 10th May and decided to pin down the French right wing by attacking with the Austrian and Dutch contingents between Antoing and Fontenoy. While these attacks were being made the British and Hanoverians would advance between Fontenoy and the Bois de Bary across what appeared to be open ground. His so called ‘Pragmatic Army’ comprised 56 battalions of infantry and 87 squadrons of cavalry supported by 80 cannon, in all around 53,000 men.

The French Army however put up a formidable defence and the Allies found the advance heavy going, taking many casualties as they attempted to break their opponents line. But Cumberland pressed on and eventually forced his way into the centre of the French position. The troops opposing him began to buckle. It was the critical moment of the battle. 

It was at this point that Marshal De Saxe unleashed his reserve who enveloped the flanks of the British Column. The Irish Brigade (approx. 4,000 men) and dressed in Redcoats was in the thick of it, the men fired up by thought of revenge against their Country’s Oppressor. The Irish Regiments advanced upon the British lines to the cry: 'Cuimhnigidh ar Liumneac, agus ar fheile na Sacsanach’ – ‘Remember Limerick and English faith!’

It consisted that day of the regiments of Clare, Lally, Dillon, Berwick, Roth, and Buckley, with Fitzjames' horse. O'Brien, Lord Clare, was in command. Aided by the French regiments of Normandy and Vaisseany, they were ordered to charge upon the flank of the English with fixed bayonets without firing…

The fortune of the field was no longer doubtful. The English were weary with a long day's fighting, cut up by cannon, charge, and musketry, and dispirited by the appearance of the Brigade. Still they gave their fire well and fatally; but they were literally stunned by the shout, and shattered by the Irish charge. They broke before the Irish bayonets, and tumbled down the far side of the hill disorganized, hopeless, and falling by hundreds. The victory was bloody and complete. Louis is said to have ridden down to the Irish bivouac, and personally thanked them…

George the Second, on hearing it, uttered that memorable imprecation on the penal code, 'Cursed be the laws which deprive me of such subjects.' The one English volley and the short struggle on the crest of the hill cost the Irish dear. One-fourth of the officers, including Colonel Dillon, were killed, and one-third of the men. The capture of Ghent, Bruges, Ostend, and Oudenard, followed the victory of Fontenoy."

STORY OF IRELAND

By A. M. Sullivan

It was the Irish Brigade’s most famous Victory - though it came at a high cost, with hundreds of men dead and wounded. The Pragmatic Army lost almost 10,000 men, while the French suffered between 6,000-7,000 casualties.

Paintings: https://orloprat.deviantart.com/art/Fontenoy-1745-409044521 & http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#5ea4948b-1ade-43b6-97fb-3974163cf7f2

 

10‭ May 1318: The Battle of Dysert O'Dea was fought on this day. It took place near near Corofin, Co Clare. The battle occurred during the Bruce Invasion of Ireland.

The Anglo Norman Lord Richard De Clare‭ ( a descendant of Strongbow) attacked the Irish chieftain Conor O’Dea, chief of the Cineal Fearmaic and the ally of  King Muirchertach O’Brien of Thomond.

De Clare made the mistake of dividing his army in three in the face of the enemy and he led the van towards Castle Dysert O’Dea‭ – the home of the Irish Chieftain. O’Dea held them at the ford of Fergus and sent messengers out to bring up reinforcements as De Clare charged at his opponents only to be surrounded and cut down by the axe of Conor O’Dea himself. 

As the rest of the Anglo Norman force came up they waded into the Irish and were on the point of extracting a bloody revenge when‭ Felim O'Connor's troops charged down the hill of Scamhall (Scool) and cut a path through the English to join the battle. De Clare's son then arrived on the scene and was cut down and killed by Felim O'Connor

As the two forces were locked in this deadly struggle both expected reinforcements to arrive and as King Muirchertach O'Brien’s men galloped onto the scene Conor O’Dea almost lost heart until he heard the Irish war cries and knew the victory was won.‭  ‬Soon Lochlann O'Hehir and the MacNamaras joined the fight and it was all over for the Anglo Normans who went down fighting.

‘so dour the hand to hand work was , that neither noble or commander of them left the ground but the far greater part fell where they stood.’

Irish Battles, G.A. Hayes McCoy

The power of one of the great Anglo Norman families was shattered forever.‭ In the wake of this victory King Muirchertach O'Brien advanced upon the environs  of Bunratty Castle, home of the De Clare’s to find much of it burnt by De Clare’s widow who promptly fled to England. The Castle though held out for a couple of weeks and the Irish completely destroyed it in 1322. The De Clare’s never returned and Thomond west of the Shannon remained under Irish rule until the early 17th Century. It was the greatest Gaelic victory of the Bruce War.

 9 May 1916: Thomas Kent/ Tomás Ceannt was executed in Cork Detention Barracks on this day: Born in 1865, Kent was arrested at his home in Castlelyons, Co. Cork following a raid by the Royal Irish Constabulary during which his brother Richard was fatally wounded. It had been his intention to travel to Dublin to participate in the Rising, but when the mobilisation order for the Irish Volunteers was cancelled on Easter Sunday he assumed that the Rising had been postponed, leading him to stay at home.  In 1966 the railway station in Cork was renamed Ceannt Station in his honour.

- See more at: http://www.taoiseach.gov.

When the Kent residence was raided they were met with resistance from Thomas and his brothers Richard, David and William. A gunfight lasted for four hours, in which an RIC officer, Head Constable William Rowe, was killed and David Kent was seriously wounded. Eventually the Kents were forced to surrender, although Richard made a last minute dash for freedom and was fatally wounded. 

Along with Roger Casement he was the only other person to be executed outside of Dublin for their part in the Easter Rising.

In September 2015 he was given a State funeral  after his remains were identified via DNA genetic testing thanks to samples supplied by Kent family descendants still living in the Castlelyons and Fermoy areas of north Cork. Following the requiem mass, Thomas Kent, who was 50 when he was executed, was buried in his family's crypt alongside the remains of his brothers William, Richard and David.

 

9 May, 1766 - Thomas Arthur Lally, Comte de Lally was executed for losing Pondicherry in India to the English. The General was convicted of ‘treason’ as a result. He was decapitated by sword before a huge crowd at the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville in Paris on this day.

He was born at Romans-sur-Isère, Dauphiné, the son of Sir Gerald Lally, an Irish Jacobite from Tuam, County Galway, who married a French lady of noble family, from whom the son inherited his titles. Entering the French army in 1721 he served in the war of 1734 against Austria; he was present at Dettingen (1743), and commanded the regiment de Lally in the famous Irish brigade at Fontenoy (May 1745). He was made a brigadier on the field by Louis XV.

He had previously served the Jacobite cause, and in 1745 accompanied Prince Charles Edward to Scotland, serving as aide-de-camp at the battle of Falkirk (January 1746). Escaping to France, he served with Marshal Saxe in the Low Countries, and at the capture of Maastricht (1748) was made a maréchal de camp. When war broke out with Britain in 1756 Lally was given the command of a French expedition to India. He reached Pondicherry in April 1758, and at the outset met with some measure of military success.

He was a man of courage and a capable general, but the desperate situation he found himself in -short of troops, money and supplies, and been put in charge of what was really a pretty hopeless task made him take severe measures to raise cash from both natives and Frenchmen alike. He tried to enforce rigid discipline on those who were slow at obeying. His relations with the Admiral of the east Indian French Fleet were disastrous and he he felt abandoned when the fleet departed for Mauritius.

In consequence everything went wrong with him. He was unsuccessful in an attack on Tanjore, and had to retire from the Siege of Madras (1758) owing to the timely arrival of the British fleet. He was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote at the Battle of Wandiwash (1760), then besieged in Pondicherry. On January 16 1761, Lally was forced to capitulate at Pondicherry where he had been besieged for months. The fortress was razed and Lally was sent to Great Britain as a prisoner of war.

On arrival in London in September 1761 he heard that he was accused in France of treason, and insisted, against advice, on returning on parole to stand his trial. He was kept prisoner for nearly two years before the trial began; then, after many painful delays, he was sentenced to death on May 6, 1766, and three days later beheaded. Louis XV tried to throw the responsibility for what was undoubtedly a judicial murder on his ministers and the public, but his policy needed a scapegoat, and he was probably well content not to exercise his authority to save an almost friendless foreigner.

The son of an Irish Jacobite exile The Count de Lally was 64 years old when he was beheaded and had been a loyal servant of the Ancien Regime throughout his lifetime. This execution was one of the worst inequities of the government of Louis XV. Lally was eventually pardoned and his Name restored to the honourable position it had held before these unfortunate events unfolded. His judicial murder is one of the most infamous cases in French legal History.

 8 May 1567: The Battle of Farsetmore/ Farseid Mór was fought near Letterkenny in County Donegal on this day. The battle was fought between the rival armies of Shane O’Neill of Tir Eoghan (Tyrone) and Aodh O'Donnell of Tir Connell (Donegal). Each side probably had about 2,000 men apiece. The battle began when O'Neill's cavalry crossed the ford at Fearsad-Suilighe at low tide.

Aodh O'Donnell, gathered with his band of loyal followers around the little hill fort of Ard-an-ghaire, dispatched his son, also called Aodh, to hold them as long as he could. The father was expecting reinforcements that very day and if he could just hold back O'Neill's army until he could assemble a force to near match the invaders he would be in with a chance. With his son locked in combat with the van of O'Neill's force he took the opportunity to fall back behind the shelter of a bog across which O'Neill's men could not advance but at a disadvantage.

After a vicious fight in which a number of leading men on both sides fell, young Aodh could hold his position no longer and pulled back to join his father behind the bog. But by then relief was at hand as three war bands of Gallowglass mercenaries drawn from the McSweenys came up to support Aodh O'Donnell in his hour of need.

O'Donnell saw his opportunity and without further ado launched his whole force upon O'Neill's men, who were possibly still forming up into a line of battle.

Fierce and desperate were the grim and terrible looks that each cast at the other from their starlike eyes; they raised the battle cry aloud, and their united shouting, when rushing together, was sufficient to strike with dismay and turn to flight the feeble and the unwarlike. They proceeded and continued to strike, mangle, slaughter, and cut down one another for a long time, so that men were soon laid low, heroes wounded, youths slain, and robust heroes mangled in the slaughter.

Annals of the Four Masters - 1567

How long this brutal melee lasted we do not know but eventually O'Neill's army was forced back onto the riverline and there it buckled and disintegrated into fragments. Then O'Neills men fled for their lives. However the sandy tidal ford they had crossed that morning in the expectation of Victory was now filled with the waters of the swiftly advancing tide. There was no way out but to try their luck in the treacherous waters, encumbered as they were by their weaponry and armour. Hundreds were cut down or drowned as they sought the safety of the other bank.

As light faded Aodh O'Donnell had won a great victory over the men of Tir Eoghan with perhaps as many as 1300 of his enemies either drowned or dead on the field of battle.*

Shane O'Neill was turned within the course of a single day from being the most powerful Chieftain in the North into a desperate fugitive fleeing for his life. He had lost some of those dearest to him in this catastrophe: two of his grandsons, plus MacDonald, the leader of his Gallowglasses, and Dubhaltach, his foster brother and 'the person most faithful and dear to him in existence'

As fortune would have it Shane had recruited some of the O'Gallagers of Tir Connell onto his side and with their local knowledge he was able to evade his pursuers by turning upstream to Scarrifhollis and then ride for home.

When he got back he found his support base collapsing around him and turned in desperation to the Mac Donald's of Cantire in Scotland under Alexander to support him. The Mac Donald's were old enemies so it was a strange place to seek Allies but they came anyway to see if they could cut a deal. They met up at Cushendun in Antrim. Whatever happened when they initially met things soon turned sour and a fight broke out. Shane was cut down and put to the sword. His body was flung in a pit and his head dispatched to Dublin for display on the Castle Walls.

So ended the colourful and dramatic career of Shane O'Neill, a man who was a thorn in the side of the English for many years and was both respected and feared by all, Irish or Foreign, whom he clashed with.

Queen Elizabeth I of England stated:

'that we give thanks to Almighty God by whom we hold and rule all that we enjoy, for his goodness and favour shown in the punishment and extinguishing of such a rebellion so long continued'

Sidney State Papers 1565-70

T.OLaidhin

* A report to Lord Deputy Sidney stated that 613 men were counted dead on the battlefield. Many others must have drowned in the waters and been swept away

Map, and the painting by Seán Ó Brógáin from:

 https://www.historyireland.com/the-battle-of-the-swilly-farsetmore-8-may-1567/

 

7 May 1915: The liner RMS Lusitania (New York to Liverpool) was torpedoed off the Old head of Kinsale by the German submarine U20 on this day. She sank within 18 minutes. (Two explosions rocked the ship. The first was clearly caused by a torpedo from U-20. The cause of the second explosion has never been definitively determined and remains the source of much controversy.) Of those on board, 761 were rescued, while 1,198 perished, including 115 US Citizens.

On the 7th September 1907 under the command of Captain James B. Watt, the RMS Lusitania sailed on her maiden voyage to New York. She carried over 3,000 passengers and crew. Her passengers were delighted with the new ship. The standards of accommodation and services were well documented. Most third class passengers enjoyed the voyage. Dining on her was like eating in the best restaurants or hotel anywhere.

In August 1914 World War One broke out. The day of anticipation finally arrived when the British Navy needed the ship for wartime service. The Lusitania had to be refitted for the purpose. Her four funnels were fully painted black to conceal her identity from enemy ships

On May 1, 1915, the ship departed New York City bound for Liverpool. Unknown to her passengers but probably no secret to the Germans, almost all her hidden cargo consisted of munitions and contraband destined for the British war effort. As the fastest ship afloat, the luxurious liner felt secure in the belief she could easily outdistance any submarine. Nonetheless, the menace of submarine attack reduced her passenger list to only half her capacity.

Following the loss of the Titanic, the Lusitania was fitted with 48 boats (22 wooden and 26 collapsible). Every boat was fitted with 2 chains to anchor them to the deck. This would prove disastrous when the ship began to sink because the chains would have to be released before the boats could be swung clear of the ship. When the Lusitania was sinking many of the chains were not released thus preventing the boats from being launched successfully. Many boats went down with the ship.

On Friday 7th May 1915 she had reached the War Zone. The usual precautions of blackening out the portholes and doubling the watch were obeyed.

The lookouts were tentatively at their posts. At about 1.30 p.m. Leslie Morton saw the torpedo heading towards the Starboard side travelling at about 22 knots. He gave the alarm stating "Torpedo coming in the Starboard side". The Bridge was slow in reacting to his warnings. Another lookout, Thomas Quinn also said that the torpedo and sounded the alarm. It was too late. The torpedo struck the ship and detonated before Turner could do anything. Power was suddenly lost. The watertight door could not be closed. Radio distress signals had to be sent using battery power.

At 2.10 p.m. after lunch the passengers were eagerly waiting for their desserts when they heard:

"the sound of an arrow entering the canvas and straw of a target magnified a thousand times" or and "a pearl of thunder" and "the slamming of a door".

A second explosion came within seconds. Suddenly the ship took a 15º list to Starboard, which began to sharpen to 16º then 17º etc until the list reached 25º - a point at which the ship could not survive. The list had become so severe that the Officers could not swing the lifeboats clear of the ship.

Panic had set in amongst the passengers. Some jumped into the water trying to flee for their lives. Captain Turner jumped into the water when the Bridge was flooding. He swam for three hours before finding a lifeboat to climb into.

Within 18 minutes the ship had rolled over and sunk with 1,195 passengers. Only 289 bodies were recovered. 764 people survived.

The survivors were landed at Cobh (Queenstown) in Co Cork. It was here too that the bodies were brought ashore or washed up in the days after the sinking. The corpses, men, women and children, were placed in coffins and lined up along the Cunard Line’s dock. A huge funeral procession made its way through the streets of Cobh to the cemetery. Many of the dead were buried in mass graves, marked by two crudely hewn stones. Others victims, likely the more affluent, were buried in individual graves with headstones noting their death on the Lusitania.

The loss of the Lusitania was to reverberate on the World stage as the USA was shocked and stunned by the actions of the German Navy in sinking what was to all appearances a civilian Liner engaged in peaceful commerce. It pushed US public opinion firmly in the direction of the Allies and helped to bring the USA into the War against Germany in April 1917.

 

6 May 1882: The Assassination of Cavendish & Burke aka The ‘Phoenix Park Murders’ on this day. The Under Secretary for Ireland Thomas Henry Burke, and the newly arrived Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish, were both stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park by members of a secret organisation known as ‘The Invincibles’. Five of the assassins were later executed in Kilmainham Jail and a number of others were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. This event rocked Anglo-Irish relations to the core and was the most shocking and audacious attack on members of the British Political Establishment in Ireland during the course of the 19th Century.

'The Phoenix Park tragedy, as it may well be called, occurred on the evening of Saturday, May 6, 1882. Its victims were Mr. Thomas H. Burke, the under-secretary, and Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new chief-secretary. Undersecretary Burke, on that evening, was walking from the Castle to his lodge or official residence in the Phoenix Park, when he accidentally met Lord Cavendish, who accompanied him in the direction he was going.

When near the Phoenix Monument, they were surrounded by five or six men, armed with knives, who attacked them instantly. Surprised and unarmed the secretaries made scarcely any resistance, and were stabbed and hurled to the ground where they expired in a few minutes.'

https://www.libraryireland.com/Atlas/XCII-Phoenix-Park-Murders.php#:~:text=The%20Phoenix%20Park%20tragedy%2C%20as,%2C%20the%20new%20chief%2Dsecretary.

Cavendish – who was married to Lucy Cavendish the niece of British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, and had worked as Gladstone's personal secretary had only arrived in Ireland the day he was assassinated! He was not the main target but Burke. He had just met by chance with him as they walked towards the vice regal Lodge and was a man of whom it could be truly said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The hunt for the perpetrators was led by Superintendent John Mallon, a Catholic who came from Armagh. He suspected a number of former Fenian activists. A large number of suspects were arrested and kept in prison by claiming they were connected with other crimes. By playing off one suspect against another Mallon got several of them to reveal what they knew.

The 'Invincibles' leader James Carey, along with Michael Kavanagh and Joe Hanlon agreed to testify against the others. Joe Brady, Michael Fagan, Thomas Caffrey, Dan Curley and Tim Kelly were convicted of the murder and were hanged by William Marwood in Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin between 14 May and 4 June 1883. Others were sentenced to serve long prison terms.

 

5 May 1916: Major John MacBride was executed on this day. Originally from Mayo he travelled to America in 1896 to further the aims of the I. R. B., thereafter travelling to South Africa where he raised the Irish Transvaal Brigade during the Second Boer War where he saw action against the British Army. When the Brigade was disbanded he made his was to Paris. MacBride married the Irish nationalist Maude Gonne in 1903 but it was not a success . They had one son the late Sean McBride Human Rights campaigner and winner of the Nobel & Lenin Peace prizes.

The 1911 return for John MacBride recorded him living as a boarder in a house in Kingstown, (or Dún Laoghaire), Co. Dublin. His occupation was a Dublin City water bailiff. The Major was not a member of the Irish Volunteers and was not privy to plans for a Rising. However  being in Dublin on Easter Monday in order to meet his brother at the Wicklow Hotel off Grafton St (his brother was due to be married on the Wednesday) he had arrived early and decided to stroll up to Stephen’s Green to kill some time. There he ran into Thomas McDonagh one of the Leaders of the revolt and an old comrade, where he was informed what the commotion going on was all about and he immediately offered his services to the insurgents.

He was at Jacob’s biscuit factory when that post was surrendered on Sunday, 30 April 1916. He freely admitted his part in the Rising and that he fought in Mufti. It looks like he did  not initially expect to be shot but when he realised that was the most likely outcome he accepted it with equanimity. At his execution he asked not to have his hands tied behind his back, but this was refused. When they did cover his eyes he made a similar request, remarking to the priest:

 “You know, father, I have often looked down their guns before.”

 

5 May 1981: Bobby Sands MP for Fermanagh and south Tyrone died in captivity after 66 days on Hunger Strike. His death sparked widespread rioting.

He was born in 1954 in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist district of north Belfast. Initially uninvolved he was forced out of his job and in June 1972, the family were intimidated out of their home in Doonbeg Drive, Rathcoole and moved into the newly built Twinbrook estate on the fringe of nationalist West Belfast. He joined the IRA and became a full time volunteer. 

In October 1972, he was arrested. Four handguns were found in a house he was staying in and he was charged with possession. He spent the next three years in Long Kesh where he had political prisoner status. Released in 1976 Bobby returned to his family in Twinbrook. He became involved again in the Armed Struggle and was caught in a car with three other men in which was found a handgun. He was held on remand for eleven months until his trial in September 1977. As at his previous trial he refused to recognise the court. 

When he was moved to the H-Blocks he went ‘On the Blanket’ and became a spokesman for the prisoners. When the first Hunger Strike was broken in December 1980 and the terms the prisoners believed were promised to them never happened he became determined to lead the next one - even onto death. This was to  ensure the prisoners 5 Demands were secured. He was now O/C in the Blocks and felt compelled to show leadership to the other men in the same predicament as himself.

He began his fast on 1 March 1981. He kept a secret Diary that lasted the first 17 days but then became too weak to continue. On 30 March, he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an independent MP who supported the prisoners' cause. To the surprise of many he won the seat with over 30,000 votes and caused a watershed in Irish Politics. However his situation was precarious as Mrs Thatcher was not for turning and Bobby Sands knew he was probably going to die before she would give in.

The end came in the early hours of 5 May when he succumbed to the effects of his fast on the 66th day of his ordeal.

I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

Prison Diary Bobby Sands

 

4‭ May 1916 -  Joseph Mary Plunkett, William Pearse, Edward Daly &  Michael O’Hanrahan, were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail Dublin on this day. This was the second batch of prisoners to be shot and further increased public disquiet about the manner in which General Maxwell was handling the aftermath of the Easter Rising.

Joseph Mary Plunkett‭ was a seriously ill man by this stage and had only left hospital days before the Rising in order to take part in it. Plunkett was one of the original members of the IRB Military Committee that was responsible for planning the Rising and it was largely his plan that was followed. He spent the Rising in the GPO. He travelled to Germany to meet Roger Casement before returning home to implement the plan to initiate a Rising. He famously married his sweetheart Grace Gifford hours before his execution in his prison cell. He was one of the signatories of the Proclamation.

William Pearse was Padraig Pearse’s younger brother and played only a minor part in the GPO during Easter Week. He was shot because of who he was rather than anything he did and it was in effect a cold blooded Murder.

Edward "Ned" Daly  was commandant of Dublin's 1st battalion in the Four Courts during the Rising. He was the youngest man to hold that rank and the youngest executed in the aftermath.

Michael O’Hanrahan was second in command of the 2nd battalion under Commandant Thomas McDonagh (executed). He fought at Jacob's Biscuit Factory.

 

4 May 519 AD: Saint Connlaedh [Conleth], Bishop of Kildare, Bridget's brazier died on this day. He was a metalworker of some note and a hermit before he began his pastoral mission. He is better known today as Saint Conleth. A copyist and skilled illuminator of manuscripts, he is noted for the Crosier that he fashioned for St. Finbar of Termon Barry, Co Roscommon.

Where Conleth was born or who his parents were is unknown. His birth is traditionally given as about 450 AD. However in Cogitosus’s  Vita Sanctae Brigidae /Life of Brigid (c. 650) it is related that he was a skilled metalworker in gold and silver that lived as a hermit at Old Connell on the Liffey near Newbridge. He had the reputation of being a very holy man who had the gift of prophecy.

Brigid invited him not only to make sacred vessels for her foundation but also to be pastor of the people nearby. Cogitosus says that they governed the church at Kildare "by means of a mutually happy alliance". And so Conleth is regarded as the first bishop of Kildare, being appointed about the year 490.

After about twenty years as Bishop Conleth set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. His pilgrimage was undertaken against the wishes of Brigid. Because he was now an old man Saint Brigid feared for him going on this journey. Somewhere on the journey in Ireland Conleth was attacked and killed by wolves. Some accounts say that he was buried on the left side of the altar in the Church of Ireland cathedral in Kildare town and Saint Brigid on the right. But as the current building is a much later construction it is now impossible to tell. Another relates that he was buried in the Old Connell graveyard. An alternative version is that his relics were transferred there in 835 to protect the inhabitants from Danish invaders. He is the patron saint of the parish of Droichead Nua (Newbridge), Co Kildare.

We don’t really know very much about this man but the curious thing about his rule is that he shared power with an Abbess (Saint Brigid) and that experiment in gender ‘power sharing’ was an unique experience in Ireland that continued there for many centuries afterwards.

 

1‭ May 664 AD: A Solar Eclipse was observed  in Ireland on this day. 

Darkness on the Kalends of May at the ninth hour

Chronicum Scotorum

Darkness on the kalends of May‭  at the ninth hour and in the same summer the sky seemed to be on fire.

‭Annals of Ulster

‭This was also how this astronomical event was recorded in the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of the Four Masters amongst others

‭The eclipse was witnessed by peoples across the Northern hemisphere from central Mexico, along the eastern seaboard of North America, over Newfoundland then across the Atlantic to been seen over the north of Ireland, the Scottish/English borderlands and then into Germany, Poland and the Ukraine.

Using modern astronomical methodology it is possible to track back in time and pinpoint the time and trajectory of  how the event would have been witnessed in these islands to show that a full solar eclipse was seen here @ 16.50 on that day.

The Solar Eclipse would have been seen as a portent of bad tidings

- and as it turned out in that summer the Plague appeared in Ireland and ravaged the Country.

The plague reached Ireland on the Kalends of August.

Annals of Ulster

Map: NASA - Total Solar Eclipse of 664 May 01

 

1 May 1169: This is the date traditionally assigned to mark the beginning of the Anglo Norman Invasion of Ireland by military forces drawn from England & Wales. The genesis of the Expedition was the bid by  Diarmait Mac Murchada the deposed king of the province of Leinster to win back his kingdom. To do this he needed help from abroad as he knew he could not hope to succeed against the combined armies of - Rory O’Connor/Ruaidhrí Ó Conchobhair -the High King/Ard Rí  of Ireland.

King Diarmait left Ireland in late 1166 to seek help in England from King Henry II. However he was not just king of England but also Duke of Normandy and held extensive territories in France that he was constantly called upon to tour in order to maintain his patchwork Empire. When Diarmait finally caught up with him in France he won his backing on condition that he be Henry’s man - i.e. he recognised Henry as his Overlord. Presumably he would have secured a Charter to carry with him to produce in front of the men of England to show that he had Royal Assent for his raising of Mercenaries in that Country. His efforts met with success.

Thus it came about that in May of 1169 a force from England landed at Bannow Bay Wexford under the command of Robert Fitzstephen - whose own mother Nesta was a Lady of Wales. These forerunners of the English Forces of eight  and a half centuries consisted of approximately 30 knights, 60 other horsemen and some 300 archers & footmen. Maurice de Prendergast from Wales arrived the following day with another 10 knights and 60 archers. They weren't of course all ‘English’ as they were would have been many Welsh -esp. the archers - in their ranks and quite possibly some real ‘Normans’ too - but to the Gaels of Ireland they were ‘the English’.

 It was a good place to land as it was on King Diarmait’s home turf. It was also within striking distance of two of Ireland’s most important ports - the Norse held towns of Wexford and Waterford.  King Diarmait was already back in Ireland by this stage and after a period of operating incognito had shown his hand  and had raised a force to dispute with the High King his claim to re take his seat as king of Leinster. He even had a small force of mercenaries with him that he paid out of his own resources. He sent one of his own sons with a force of 500 men to rendezvous with these outside reinforcements and with the combined force Diarmait then advanced and layed siege to Wexford. After initially being repulsed, they forced the Wexfordmen to submit. By prior terms the town and the lands around it were granted to Fitzstephen and de Prendergast.

Then Robert the son of Stephen

Got himself ready the first;

He wished to cross over to Ireland

In order to aid King Dermot.

 Brave knights of great renown

He brought with him, nine or ten.

One was Meiler the son of Henry,

Who was very powerful;

And Miles came there also

The son of the bishop of St. Davids.

Knights came there and barons

Whose names for the most part I do not know.

There crossed over a baron

With seven companions,

Maurice de Prendergast was his name,

As the song tells us.

Hervey too, in truth, crossed over,

He was of Mount-Maurice.

About three hundred crossed over

Knights and common folk besides.

At Bannow they landed

With all their men.

When they had landed

And had all disembarked,

They made their men encamp

On the sea-shore.

The English folk sent word

To King Dermot by messenger

That at Bannow with three ships

They had at that time landed,

And that the king should speedily

Come there without delay.

Song of Dermot and the Earl

Thus Fortune, constant only in her instability, almost deserted not only MacMurchad, but Fitzstephen also. However on the following morning, after Mass had been celebrated throughout the Army, they proceeded to renew the assault with more circumspection and order, relying on their skill as well as their courage, and when they drew near to the walls the townsmen despairing of being able to defend them and reflecting that they were disloyally resisting their Prince sent envoys Dermitius [Diarmait] commissioned to treat of the terms of Peace. At length by the mediation of two bishops who chanced to be in town at the time, and other worthy and peaceable men peace was restored, the townsmen submitting to Dermitius and delivering four of their chief men as hostages for their fealty to him. And the more to animate the courage of his adherents and reward their chiefs for their first success he forthwith granted the town with the whole territory appertaining to it to Fitzstephen and Maurice according to the stipulations in their original Treaty. 

 Expugnatio Hibernica by Giraldus Cambrenus

So these arrivals did not want a payment in specie for their efforts but wished to be rewarded with lands and towns and cities of their own which must of course be at the expense of those who already held them - i.e. lands either granted to them by  Diarmait from those of his underlings or taken at the expense of their common enemies in the rest of Ireland. This was  the root of the idea of the Conquest in the eyes of the men who made it - to usurp the Irish kings and rule in their stead. From such small beginnings emanated many great and bloody events in the History of Ireland.

* Illustration by Angus McBride