28 February 1985: The IRA attacked Newry RUC barracks and killed 9 of its members and injured many more. It was the worst single incident suffered by RUC in the course of the Troubles. The base was situated at Corry Square in the town and while heavily guarded the canteen inside was just a portacabin that was full at the time of the attack. Shortly after 6.30 pm on 28 February, nine shells were launched from a lorry, which had been parked on Monaghan Street,  about 250 yards (230 m) from the base. At least one 50 lb shell landed on a portacabin containing a canteen, where many officers were having their evening tea break. 

“Myself and two other guys were sitting in an office and we were having our dinner. And at 6.35pm that evening, which was a Thursday evening, Crossroads had just started on the television. Then there were a series of bangs and the windows came in. “I made my way out into the main corridor in the station, and was confronted by a uniformed police officer,” he said. “He asked what was happening, and my words to him were: ‘I think we’re all about to die’. “The next recollection is an officer, a more senior officers, coming in through the back door from the yard where the canteen was. “And if you looked at him he looked like a typical cartoon character who has just been in an explosion. “His shirt was in tatters and he said something to the effect: It’s gone. “There were no more explosions, and myself and others ran out the back to where the canteen was. And it wasn’t there any more. It was just wreckage.

Retired RUC Officer

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/crime/newry-ruc-station-attack-anniversary-ex-officer-says-pure-carnage-wreaked-by-ira-never-leaves-him-2002087

The Police Station is now long since demolished & has been replaced by the grassy McClelland Park and a town Car Park.

Those who died were:

Chief Inspector Alexander Donaldson, 41

Res Constable Geoffrey Campbell, 24

Detective Sgt John Dowd, 31

Detective Constable Ivy Kelly, 29

Res Constable Rosemary McGookin, 27

Res Constable Paul McFerran, 33

Res Constable Sean McHenry, 19

Res Constable Denis Price, 22

Constable David Topping, 22.

 

27 February 1900: Seán Ó Faoláin was born  in Cork OTD. He was one of the most influential figures in 20th-century Irish culture. A short-story writer of international repute, he was also a leading commentator and critic.  O’Faoláin also wrote four novels, three travel books, six biographies, a play, a memoir, a history book, and a so-called "character study." He produced critical studies of the novel and the short-story form, introduced texts of historical and literary merit, and contributed scores of articles, reviews, and uncollected stories to periodicals in Ireland, Britain, and America.

Most famously, he cofounded and edited the influential journal The Bell from 1940 to 1946. Under O’Faoláin’s editorship, the Bell participated in many key debates of the day. He wrote a number of historical biographies incl.  Constance Markievicz; The Autobiography of Theobald Wolfe Tone; A Life of Daniel O'Connell and The Great O'Neill.

Seán Ó Faoláin - Wikipedia

From the 1950s O'Faolain enjoyed a better style of living, travelling frequently to Italy and America, and his earnings improved. He was becoming better known abroad, particularly in America.

His stories enjoyed great success in his later years. Honours and distinctions came his way. He was was elected to the honorary position of saoi in Aosdána. In 1988 he received the freedom of the city of Cork.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/ofaolain-sean-a6736

 He died on 20 April 1991 in Dublin.

 

26‭ February 943: The Vikings of Dublin got a lucky break, when they ambushed the heir apparent to the High King, ‘Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks/ Muirchertach na Cochall Craicinn’ and slew him on this day.

Muirchertach son of Niall,‭ i.e. Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks, king of Ailech and the Hector of the western world, was killed by the heathens, i.e. by Blacair son of Gothfrith, king of the foreigner, at Glas Liatháin beside Cluain Chaín, in Fir Rois, on the first feria, fourth of the Kalends of March [26 Feb]

Ard Macha was plundered by the same foreigners on the following day,‭ the third of the Kalends of March…

ANNALS OF ULSTER

Muirchertach was the son of Niall Glundubh who had himself been killed fighting the Vikings at Dublin in‭ 919 AD. He had fought and won many battles and in one report is mentioned as leading a naval expedition against the Norsemen of the Hebrides. However he suffered an embarrassing episode in 939 when in a surprise raid his enemies’ ships raided his fortress of Aileach (outside Derry) and carried him off. He was forced to ransom his own release to regain his freedom.

Muirchertach,‭ under the ancient rule of the kingship of Tara alternating between the northern and southern O’Neills, was due to replace King Donnachadh on the latter’s demise. Sometimes though ambition got the better of him and he clashed with his senior colleague and at other times co-operated with him.  Muirchertach married Donnchad's daughter Flann, but relations between the two were not good. Conflict between them is recorded in 927, 929, and 938. 

His most remarkable feat came in‭ 941 when he carried out a Circuit of Ireland with a picked force of 1,000 men and secured pledges from all the principal kingdoms and carried away with him hostages as security. The Dalcassians (Brian Boru’s people) alone refused to submit. But Muirchertach eventually handed over all his hostages to Donnachadh as a mark of respect.

But his luck ran out in‭ ‬943 when he was taken by surprise by the Vikings of Dublin somewhere near Ardee, Co Louth. It looks like Muirchertach was attempting to fend off a raid by them that was heading north towards Armagh when he was taken off guard: 

Muirchertach son of Niall,‭ heir designate of Ireland, was killed in Áth Firdia by the foreigners of  Ath Cliath, and Ard Macha was plundered by the heathens.

Chronicon Scotorum

 

25 February 1852: Thomas Moore, Bard of Erin died on this day. He is best known today as the lyricist for ‘Irish Melodies’ in which he set lyrics to ancient Irish pieces whose origins stretched back many years beforehand. His Life however was much more than that.

He was born above his parents shop in Aungier St Dublin on 28 May 1779 & later attended Samuel Whyte's English grammar school whose other great alumni was the playwright and politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of whom Moore was one day to write a biography. It was while he was at Whyte’s  that he first developed his taste for the stage. On completing his scholarly studies he went on in 1795 to Trinity College to study for Law. At that time Ireland was in a state of ferment with Revolutionary sentiment sweeping the land. Moore too was swept along in the enthusiasm of the times but stopped short of fully committing himself to violent Revolution. In April 1798, Moore was acquitted at Trinity on the charge of being a party, through the Society of United Irishmen, to sedition.

The following year he departed for London where he continued his law studies at the Middle Temple. He was gradually drawn into the artistic world of this great metropolis and the necessity in those days of acquiring patrons to advance in Society. Moore's translations of Anacreon, celebrating wine, women and song, was published in 1800 with a dedication to the Prince of Wales. In 1801, Moore published a collection of his own verse: Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little Esq. However nothing really came of any of this and in 1803 he sailed across the Atlantic  to become the registrar of the Admiralty Prize Court in Bermuda. He hated it and soon found a replacement so that he could travel to the USA and tour the Great Republic. He hated there too & the people he met even more, especially those with an attachment to the institution of Slavery.

On his return to London he built on his experience and acquainted himself with some of the most illustrious members of the City's’ artistic community. However the making of his name undoubtedly rests on his writing the lyrics to the work known as ‘Irish Melodies’ [1808] based on a collection of  old Irish compositions. The principal source for the tunes was Edward Bunting's A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music [1797]. The scores were arranged by Dublin born Sir John Andrew Stevenson with Moore putting the lyrics to them. They were an immediate & huge success and many of them are still extant in the singing world to this day e.g.  the "The Last Rose of Summer", "The Minstrel Boy", "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms" and "Oft in the Stilly Night" becoming immensely popular.

Thomas Moore was much involved in Politics as a ‘squib’ writer for the Whig party in England that was by the standards of the time was more progressive in outlook to Reform of the political order. He came under the patronage of various members of the Whig Establishment though how much he financially made directly or if anything at all is problematical - he always denied that he did. Though in that Age patronage was pretty well essential to open doors into Society.

Moore was also an actor and a singer of some note and he returned to Ireland on many occasions to perform on the stage. Through this medium he met his one & only wife  Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke, they had five children together but alas they all pre-deceased their parents.

Possibly next to being the author of the lyrics for Irish Melodies the most famous or infamous incident in his life was his part in destroying the unpublished memoirs of his great companion Lord Byron who had entrusted the manuscript to him for safekeeping. However after the poets’ death [1824] Lady Byron wanted it destroyed as its contents were judged too shocking by those closest to him in this life. In what some were to call the greatest literary crime of the century, in Moore's presence the family solicitors tore up all extant copies of the manuscript and burned them in the fireplace!

Thomas Moore spent most of his professional life in London but never forgot his Homeland and lauded the efforts of the men of 1798 and 1803 to free her from Oppression. He much admired Lord Edward Fitzgerald one of the great heroes of the Rising of 1798. He had a particular contempt for Lord Castlereagh who had facilitated the passing of the Act of Union [1800] that abolished Ireland’s Parliament.

On point of Religion Moore took a middling course between Catholicism and the Anglican Church, he was theologically a doubter but could not completely break away from the religious culture of his upbringing - today he would probably be called a ‘Cultural Catholic’.

History & Biography was another subject to which he turned his pen and he published a Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan the latter being a great success. His ‘History of Ireland’ published in four volumes between 1835 and 1846, was an enormous work but did not catch the public’s imagination. But by the late 1840s his powers were fading and with his wife and all his children dead he drifted into senility. The end came on 25 February 1852 in his seventy-third year and he was buried at Bromham, near Devizes in Wiltshire. His epitaph in St. Nicholas churchyard grave is inscribed:

    Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,

    The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long;

    When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee.

    And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song!

 

24 February 1943: Thirty five girls and their 80 year old cook were killed when fire swept through their dormitory at St. Joseph's Orphanage & Industrial School in Cavan Town on this day.

In the early hours the morning a fire broke out in the basement laundry of the Orphanage. The Institution was run by the enclosed order of Poor Clare nuns who were charged with the protection of the girls. The fire & smoke spread very rapidly and quickly took hold. Local people did their best to try and rescue those within. When entry was finally gained it was too late to reach many of the terrified screaming children trapped in the top floor dormitories. 

The children who died were on the top floors of the building and on the night in question the three dormitories there contained 67 souls incl. 3 adults. On the next floor down there was one dormitory in which were 22 individuals incl.1 adult who all escaped the conflagration. In total 89 persons were present on the night in the actual Orphanage.

The local fire service was totally overwhelmed and by the time they had brought their inadequate equipment to bear the flames had taken hold, the roof had caved in and the building was soon firmly ablaze. Thirty five children and an elderly lay woman were burned to death when the roof of the building collapsed. The following day what remained of the thirty six bodies were recovered from the blackened ruins. They were put in just eight coffins and buried subsequently in a mass grave.

An Official State enquiry was held that reached the conclusion that in all probability the origin of the fire was a faulty flue in the chimney that set a clothes hanger on fire in the Laundry room and that those who died could have been brought to safety in time if they had been brought down to safety immediately instead of their supervisor going to get help & being unable to return to her charges before the smoke took hold.

REPORT OF THE Tribunal Of Inquiry Into The Fire

AT ST. JOSEPH'S ORPHANAGE, MAIN STREET, CAVAN found:

That the loss of life was caused by combination of circumstances, namely,

(a) fright or panic resulting in faulty directions being given;

(b ) want of training in fire-fighting, including rapid evacuation of personnel and movement in smoke laden atmosphere

c ) lack of proper leadership and control of operations;

(d) want of knowledge of the lay-out 'of the premises on the part of persons from outside;

(e) inadequate rescue and firefighting service at the proper time;

(I) the absence of light at a critical period

362.7320941698-Report St. Joseph's Orphanage PDF.pdf (nuigalway.ie)

The children who died were:

Mary Harrison -15 years of age from Dublin

Mary Hughes - 15 years of age from Killeshandra

Ellen McHugh -15 years of age from Blacklion

Kathleen & Frances Kiely - 12 & 9 years of age from Virginia

Mary & Margaret Lynch - 15 & 10 years of age from Cavan

Josephine & Mona Cassidy - 15 & 11 years of age from Belfast

Kathleen Reilly – 14 years of age from Butlersbridge

Mary  & Josephine Carroll – 12 yrs & 10 years of age from Castlerahan

Mary & Susan McKiernan - 16 & 14 years of age from Dromard

Rose Wright – 11 years of age from Ballyjamesduff

Mary & Nora Barrett - 12 years of age -Twins – from Dublin

Mary Kelly - 10 years of age from Ballinagh

Mary Brady – 7 years of age from Ballinagh

Dorothy Daly – 7 years of age from Cootehill

Mary Ivers – 12 years of age from Kilcoole Wicklow

Philomena Regan – 9 years of age from Dublin

Harriet & Ellen Payne - 11 & 8 years of age from Dublin

Teresa White – 6 years of age from Dublin

Mary Roche - 6 years of age from Dublin

Ellen Morgan – 10 years of age from Virginia

Elizabeth Heaphy - 4 years of age from Swords

Mary O'Hara – 7 years of age from Kilnaleck

Bernadette Serridge - 5 years of age from Dublin

Katherine & Margaret Chambers - 9 & 7 years of age from Enniskillen

Mary Lowry – 17 years of age from Drumcrow, Cavan

Bridget & Mary Galligan - 17 & 18 years of age Drumcassidy, Cavan

&

Mary Smith 80 years of age employed as Cook

 

23‭ February 1886: Lord Randolph Churchill of the Conservative Party spoke at a meeting in Belfast in which he is said to have uttered the phrase:

 ‘Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right’

The Liberals had won the General Election the previous year but had not secured an overall majority. Lord Churchill was anxious to undermine the rapport that had developed between the Liberal Party under William Gladstone and the Irish Parliamentary Party under Charles Stewart Parnell.‭ ‬They thus relied on Parnell to secure their hold on the House of Commons. The price for such support was Gladstone committing himself to bring forward a Bill for Home Rule for Ireland in the current session of Parliament. 

‭Churchill was fundamentally opposed to Home Rule and planned to use his name in Ulster to give heart to those within the ranks of the Orange Order that were prepared to resist by any means the bringing in of such a measure. He had written to a friend some days previously what his plan was:‬

I decided some time ago that if the G.O.M.‭* ‬went for Home Rule, the Orange card would be the one to play. Please God it may turn out to be the ace of trumps and not the two.

* Grand Old Man – Mr Gladstone

The revitalised Orange Order had sponsored meetings for all who were against Home Rule.‭ It arranged the meeting in the Ulster Hall at which the main speaker was to be Lord Randolph Churchill himself. He gave, to a wildly enthusiastic audience, this slogan that was to become their rallying cry in the years ahead.

Thus began the close association between the Conservative Party and the Unionists in Ireland that was to such a feature of Anglo-Irish relations for decades to come. It should be noted though that he may not have actually uttered these words - but he never actually denied saying them either! 

His more famous son Sir Winston Churchill was twice Prime Minister of Gt .Britain & led her to Victory in the Second World War. Ironically he was a supporter of Home Rule when a member of the Liberal Party prior to the Great War.

 

22 February 1973: Elizabeth Bowen author, socialite and spy[?] died on this day. Of Anglo Irish stock she was born at 15 Herbert Place in the city of Dublin on 7 June 1899. Her parents were Henry Charles Cole Bowen and Florence (née Colley) Bowen. In 1907 her father declined into mental illness and she moved with her mother to England where they took up residence at the seaside town of Hythe in Kent. Tragedy was to strike her again though when her mother died in 1912. After that she was brought up by a committee of Aunts and shunted back and forth between them.

It was only as she grew older that she realised the chasm between the closed world of the Anglo-Irish set she belonged to and the bulk of the Catholic population of Ireland:

‘It was not until after the end of those seven winters that I understood that we Protestants were a minority, and that the unquestioned rules of our being came, in fact, from the closeness of a minority world’...

I took the existence of Roman Catholics for granted but met few and was not interested in them. They were simply “the others,” whose world lay alongside ours but never touched.'

Elizabeth Bowen, Bowen’s Court & Seven Winters: Memories of a Dublin Childhood, (London: Virago, 1984;1942)

After some time at art school in London she decided that her talent lay in writing. She mixed with the Bloomsbury Group, which contained some the most talented and outrageous (for the time) people involved in the London Arts scene. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Encounters was published in 1923. It was in that year she married one Alan Cameron. He had served in the Great War in which he was badly gassed. The marriage has been described as "a sexless but contented union." The marriage was reportedly never consummated! She reputedly had numerous extra martial affairs with other men though they stayed married until his death in 1952.

The great love of her life was Charles Ritchie, a Canadian diplomat of great charm and intelligence from a privileged Nova Scotia background. They first met in 1941 and continued an On-Off relationship for over 30 years until her death. She really could not live without knowing that he loved her - but to him she was a fascinating creature though not the absolute centre of his life. He later married another woman and that must have hurt Elizabeth - but there was nothing she could really do about it.

But while an author of some note its clear her personal life was an unsettled one. The loss of her parents while still a child must have had a had a huge impact on her psyche that left her reserved and unsure in human relations though with a great deal of silent perception on the frailties of the human condition. Though somewhat cryptic in style her reading of human nature was what made her novels such gems in the way she described her characters and the rarefied world that they moved through.

Strangely in Ireland she is remembered as much for her writing reports from here during the Second World War to the British Ministry of Information in London about the attitudes and feelings of the Great and the Ordinary towards Britain and the War - for which some have labelled her a ‘Spy’. A matter of opinion really.

She tried to spend as much time as possible at her beloved Bowen’s Court in Cork, the family seat she inherited in 1930. But while it was a idyll away from the drudgery of London its upkeep was a huge burden on her finances. Eventually it led her to a nervous breakdown, a string of unpaid debts and the sale and eventual demolition of Bowens Court in 1960. She returned to London and witnessed the ‘Swinging Sixties’ there. A smoker she developed Lung Cancer in 1972. That year she saw out her last Christmas in Ireland staying with friends in Kinsale Co Cork. She died in London on 22 February 1973, aged 73. She is buried with her husband in Farahy Co Cork  churchyard, close to the gates of Bowen's Court, where there is a memorial plaque to her.

Her best-known novels are The Death of the Heart and The Heat of the Day, but her own favourite was The Last September, published when she was still in her 20s; it was, she said, the work of hers “nearest to my heart”.

Her prose is so subtle and allusive that it would be a disservice to quote from her, but read almost any descriptive passage in The Last September and you will understand her greatness.

John Banville Irish Times 7 March 2015

 

21 February 1922: A new Police Force, the ‘Civic Guard’ began its first Recruitment campaign on this day. It was intended to replace the Royal Irish Constabulary as the instrument charged with Law enforcement within the prospective Irish Free State that was due to come into full operation by the end of the year.

In January 1922, the Provisional Government had decided that the Royal Irish Constabulary was to be disbanded "as soon as possible". They decided to replace the Republican Police with a regular police force under a trained police officer. Michael Collins had reported to the Provisional Government on 28 January that a police organising committee was being formed, that would include members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police.

The committee held their first meeting in the Gresham Hotel on Thursday, 9 February, with General Richard Mulcahy, Michael Collins, and Michael J. Staines among those in attendance. Work was started immediately under Michael Staines T.D. as the acting chairman. A veteran of the Easter Rising he had been active in the administration of the National Arbitration Courts and the Republican Police during the War of Independence.

Volunteer Brigade Officers around the Country were requested to dispatch suitable recruits for training to a temporary headquarters at the Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Any candidates who attended for examination were to be at least 5' 9", unmarried and between the ages of 19 and 27. They were compelled to sit examinations in reading spelling and arithmetic to gain entry as cadets. The first man to join the Civic Guard was an ex RIC man P. J. Kerrigan.

However the name ‘Civic Guard’ was not formally decided upon until 27 February and on the following 10 March, Michael Joseph Staines was formally appointed as its first Commissioner. In August of the following year the Police Force of the State was renamed An Garda Síochána (Guardians of the Peace) and has remained the name of the Force ever since. Michael Staines was then retrospectively recognised as the first Commissioner of the Garda Síochána. 

 

20 February 1644: The Execution of Sir Connor Maguire - ‘The Maguire’ of Fermanagh at Tyburn, London on this day*. He was hanged, drawn and quartered for ‘High Treason’. Maguire had been one of the leaders of the 1641 Rising in Ireland and was tasked with seizing Dublin Castle from the English. At the last moment the plans were discovered and the plot was aborted. He was quickly captured and eventually confessed to his role in the affair.

 In June 1642 he and other prisoners were sent over to London and held in the Tower under severe conditions. They were then sent to Newgate Prison and held as ‘close prisoners’ - bread and water diet in close confinement. Moved back to the Tower they were treated somewhat better. The guard loosened Maguire and others managed to escape but while waiting for a ship to the Continent they were recognised and recaptured after just a few weeks of freedom.

'The peerage in Maguire’s case made a difficulty. There were several precedents for trying in England treasons committed in Ireland. That being admitted as good law, it was easy to show that an Irish peer was a commoner in England, and as such Maguire was tried. Many points of law were raised, but the facts were patent, and he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. On the cart at Tyburn Maguire was cruelly harassed about religious matters, but he remained firm. He carried in his hand some curious papers, partly of a devotional character, with directions as to how he should bear himself. He declared that he forgave all his 'enemies and defenders, even those that have a hand in my death,' and that he died a Roman catholic.'

Dictionary of National Biography

On February 20 1644 Lord Maguire to whom the executioner would have shown some favour by leaving him to hang on the gallows until he should be quite dead and meanwhile the executioner was busy kindling the fire with which his entrails were to be burned after his death but so inhuman were the officers that they totally denied Lord Maguire the services of one of our Fathers on the scaffold and they waited not for the executioner but one of them cut the rope with a halberd and let the Lord Maguire drop alive and then called the executioner to open him alive and very ill the executioner did it the said Lord Maguire making resistance with his hand and defending himself with such little strength as he had; and such was the cruelty that for sheer compassion the executioner bore not to look upon him in such torment, and, to have done with him, speedily handled his knife well and cut his throat.

Letter from Father Hugh Burke, bishop of Kilmacduagh

Eyewitness to Irish History

By Peter Berresford Ellis

* Near Marble Arch

 

19 February 1921: Brigadier-General Frank Percy Crozier CB, CMG DSO the head of the ‘ Black and Tans’ submitted his resignation on this day. The General was disgusted at the undisciplined antics of many of the ‘cadets’  under his command of the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary  (RIC). He had made inquiries that seemed to him to point the finger of blame at men under his nominal control in the murder of Father Griffin in Galway and the projected murder of Bishop Fogarty. He had sent back in disgrace 21 of the more outrageous members of his force to Britain only to discover that General Tudor, the overall head of the RIC, had recalled them for duty in Ireland. This proved a catalyst in Crozier deciding to resign his position.  

Following questions put to Sir Hamar Greenwood, Chief Secretary for Ireland, by the Irish MP Captain Redmond in the House of Commons this news became public and the affair became an open scandal. The notorious reputation of the ‘Black & Tans’ was further enhanced and their bloody reign was now open for all to see. 

Born in Bermuda in 1879 Crozier spent a great deal of his youth in Ireland but was educated in England. He had seen active service in the Boer War and later in Northern Nigeria. He served in World War One leading the 9th Royal Irish Rifles, whose rank and file were drawn from Loyalist West Belfast. He led them 'over the top' on 1 July 1916 and displayed great bravery but also ruthlessness against those who wilted in the advance on the German positions. 

He was a hard man if ever there was one and an Empire Loyalist to boot. He was somewhat eccentric in his opinions and actions and not everyone found him a trustworthy character. But even he found the actions of some of his subordinates unacceptable and of course no fighting force can survive if discipline is not enforced. In this instance he really had no choice but to resign once his Authority over his men was flouted  by those above him in the Chain of Command.

Crozier drifted off into obscurity after this and spent his last years putting his energies and pen to the cause of peace,  denouncing war as a means of settling international disputes in a series of books that sought to portray war with uncompromising brutality. These included ‘A Brass Hat in No Mans Land’ about his time on the Western Front with amongst others the 36th Ulster Division and  ‘Ireland Forever’ on his time in charge of the ‘Black & Tans’. He died in 1937.

 

18 February 1366: The Viceroy, Lionel Duke of Clarence summoned a Parliament at Kilkenny on this day. From this emerged in the following year the series of infamous ordinances that became popularly known as the ‘Statutes of Kilkenny’ and were designed to put a legal framework on the division of Ireland into two separate peoples: the English and the Irish. In fact it was one Statute and contained thirty-five articles of note.

It was officially entitled:

A Statute of the Fortieth Year of King Edward III., enacted in a parliament held in Kilkenny, A.D. 1367, before Lionel Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

 For instance if any man took a name after the Irish fashion, used the Irish language, or dress, or mode of riding (without saddle), or adopted any other Irish customs, all his lands and houses were forfeited, and he himself was put into jail till he could find security that he would comply with the law. The Irish living among the English were permitted to remain, but were forbidden to use the Irish language under the same penalty. To use or submit to the Brehon law [Gaelic Law] or to exact 'coyne and livery' [extractions and billeting of soldiers on households] was treason. The Irish game of Hurling was also banned - a game which is still played today - esp in Kilkenny! [below]

The Statute of Kilkenny, though not exhibiting quite so hostile a spirit against the Irish as we find sometimes represented, yet carried out consistently the vicious and fatal policy of separation adopted by the government from the beginning. It was intended to apply only to the English, and was framed entirely in their interests. Its chief aim was to withdraw them from all contact with the "Irish enemies"--so the natives are designated all through the act--to separate the two races for evermore.

From A Concise History of Ireland by P. W. Joyce

Lionel was the third son of King Edward III [above] and certainly was well placed to have the King’s ear on matters relating to how to rule over Ireland. Nevertheless the Duke of Clarence did not have much success in Ireland and these measures were more the result of desperation than the confident exercise of power by him. They were more an attempt to hold back the tide as the English Colony in Ireland continued to disintegrate and shrink in size and influence.

Bizarrely the noble Duke was not long to survive his sojourn in Ireland, some years later he died suddenly at Alba in the province of Piedmont in northern Italy while enjoying the comforts of his second wife, one Violante Visconti, daughter of the Lord of Pavia. He was probably poisoned by his father in Law in order to block the enormous Dowry he demanded as payment for marrying the man’s daughter!

 

17 February 1978: An IRA Bomb at the La Mon Hotel near Belfast Co Down  killed 12 innocent people and injured many more in a horrific no warning attack.

The IRA unit had tried to issue a telephone warning but claimed that a vandalised phone box and a UDR checkpoint had delayed them. An incendiary device attached to an outside wall and fuelled by the addition of a number of jerrycans caused a devastating explosion that swept through the dining area where guests had taken their seats at a number of functions that were being held there that night. There were 450 diners, hotel staff and guests inside the building when the bomb went off.

The dead were all Protestant civilians. Half were young married couples. Most of the dead and injured were members of the Irish Collie Club and the Northern Ireland Junior Motor Cycle Club, holding their yearly dinner dances in the Peacock Room and Gransha Room, respectively. The former took the full force of the explosion and subsequent fire; many of those who died had been seated nearest the window where the bomb had gone off. Some of the injured were still receiving treatment 20 years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Mon_restaurant_bombing

There was widespread anger and outrage in the wake of the attack and the IRA were forced to apologise for their terrible blunder that cost the lives of so many innocent people.

Even today the relatives of the victims are calling for an inquiry into who exactly gave the orders to go ahead with the attack. But with some files listed as 'missing' its unlikely that the exact circumstances behind one of the worst incidents in the 'Troubles' will ever be forthcoming.  

Those who died in the bombing were:

Thomas Neeson (52), from Lisburn, Co Antrim.

Sarah Wilson Cooper (62), from Alliance Crescent, north Belfast

Sandra Morris (27), from Alliance Crescent, north Belfast. *

Ian McCracken (25), from Bangor, Co Down

Elizabeth McCracken (25), from Bangor, Co Down.

Daniel Magill (37), from Dundonald, Co Down. 

Gordon Crothers (30), from Gilbourn Court, east Belfast.

Joan Crothers (26), from Gilbourn Court, east Belfast. 

Paul Nelson (37), from Dundonald, Co Down. 

Dorothy Nelson (34), from Dundonald, Co Down.

Christine Lockhart (33), from Richhill, Co Armagh,

 https://www.irishnews.com/news/2018/02/17/news/la-mon-40th-anniversary-1257295/

* pictured above with her husband Joseph who survived.

 

15 February‭ ‬1853: The loss of the paddle steamship, the Queen Victoria on this day. She went down on the rocks off the Bailey Lighthouse on Howth head on this day. Over 80 lives were lost as she struck this outcrop of the peninsula in a blinding snowstorm.

This precipitous portion of the coast was the scene of a lamentable shipping disaster in‭ 1853. The steamship Queen Victoria, on a voyage from Liverpool to Dublin, with about 100 passengers and cargo, struck on the southern side of the Casana rock during a dense snowstorm, between 2 and 3 o'clock on the morning of the 15th February. Eight of the passengers managed to scramble overboard on to the rocks, from which they made their way up the cliffs to the Bailey Lighthouse. The captain, without further delay, ordered the vessel to be backed, so as to float her clear of the rocks, but she proved to be more seriously injured than was imagined, and began to fill rapidly when she got into deep water. Drifting helplessly towards the Bailey, she struck the rocky base of the Lighthouse promontory, and sank in fifteen minutes afterwards, with her bowsprit touching the shore. The Roscommon steamer fortunately happened to pass while the ill-fated vessel was sinking, and, attracted by the signals of distress, Promptly put out all her boats and rescued between 40 and 50 of the passengers. About 60, however, were drowned, including the captain.

After a protracted inquest extending over several days,‭ ‬the jury found that the disaster was due to the culpable negligence of the captain and the first mate,‭ ‬in failing to slacken speed during a snowstorm which obscured all lights, they well knowing at the time that they were approaching land. The mate was subsequently put on trial for manslaughter. It was believed by many that if the captain had not,‭ ‬in the first instance, backed off the rocks into deep water,‭ ‬all on board could have been saved.

From‭ ‬: The Neighbourhood of Dublin by Weston St. John Joyce.

A subsequent Board of Trade inquiry blamed the ship's captain and first officer, as well as the lighthouse crew. A fog bell was supposed to have been installed in the lighthouse in 1846, seven years earlier, but was delayed due to costs of other construction projects. The bell was finally installed in April 1853, as a result of the Queen Victoria shipwreck and the subsequent inquiry.

At least one attempt to raise the ship was made afterwards, which failed, and the ship was salvaged where she lay. The wreck is still in place.

Members of the Marlin Sun Aqua Club, Dublin discovered the wreck in 1983. They reported their discovery to the authorities, and were in part responsible for having the first Underwater Preservation Order placed on a shipwreck in Irish waters. They also carried out the first underwater survey on such a wreck. The wreck was the first to be protected by The National Monuments Act (Historic Wreck), when the order was granted in 1984, thanks to representations made by Kevin Crothers, IUART, and the Maritime Institute of Ireland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Queen_Victoria_(1838).

 

14 February 1981: A fire at the Stardust Night Club, Dublin killed 48 young people on this day. The origin, source and cause of the fire still remain a mystery but what is not in doubt is that the huge loss of life was caused by inadequate safety measures. The building was not purpose built as a place of entertainment. It was in fact a converted jam factory that obviously was not designed to hold within its walls so many people for such a purpose. Even more astonishing is that many of the fire exits were chained shut, ostensibly to avoid people entering the premises without paying. The victims were all young people enjoying a night out and the fire spread so rapidly that panic ensued as the lights went out and acrid thick smoke quickly engulfed the premises.

Hundreds fled for their lives as the building went up in minutes. The failure of the lighting in the club led to widespread panic causing mass trampling as many of the patrons instinctively ran for the main entrance. Many people mistook the entrance to the men's toilets for the main entrance doors but the windows there had metal plates fixed on the inside and iron bars on the outside. Firemen attempted in vain to pull off the metal bars using a chain attached to a fire engine. Firemen rescued between 25-30 of those trapped in the front toilets.

Dublin’s Emergency Disaster Plan was implemented and the bodies of the dead and dying and those burned, some horribly, were ferried to all the City’s major hospitals. The City Morgue could not cope with so many being brought in at once and the Army had to set up tents to hold the bodies of those who died until they could be identified by their loved ones. Scenes of heart rending grief were witness in the days that followed as these identifications were carried out and the funerals took place.

Thelma Frazer could only be identified by the jewellery she wore to the Stardust disco. [above]In at least five instances a formal identification was not possible as some bodies were burned beyond recognition. Recent advances in DNA though mean that at last this can now be resolved.

As it so happened the Fianna Fáil Party were holding their Ard Fheis that same weekend but once news broke of the terrible loss of life the Taoiseach Charlie Haughey cancelled the proceedings as a mark of respect. The import of such a terrible event as this was not lost upon him as the Stardust was within his own Constituency and he knew the families of many of the victims. He attended many of the funerals himself and indeed was seen in tears on at least one occasion as the internments took place.

To this day no certain cause as to how the fire started has been established - whether it was arson or accident.

The names of those who died are:

Michael Barrett, Raheny, Dublin 5.

Richard Bennett, Coolock, Dublin 5

Carol Bissett, Ringsend, Dublin 4.

James Buckley, Donnycarney, Dublin 5.

Paula Byrne, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Caroline Carey, Coolock, Dublin 5.

John Colgan, Swords, Co. Dublin.

Jacqueline Croker, Killmore West, Dublin 5.

Liam Dunne, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Michael Farrell, Coolock, Dublin 5.

David Flood, Beaumount, Dublin 5.

Thelma Frazer, Sandymount, Dublin 4.

Michael French, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Josephine Glenn, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Michael Griffiths, Killmore, Dublin 5.

Robert Hillock, Twinbrook, Belfast.

Brian Hobbs, Whitehall, Dublin 9.

Eugene Hogan, Artane, Dublin 5.

Murtagh Kavanagh, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Martina Keegan, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Mary Keegan, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Robert Kelly, Raheny, Dublin 5.

Mary Kennedy, Killbarrack, Dublin 5.

Mary Kenny, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Margaret Kiernan, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Sandra Lawless, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Francis Lawlor, Finglas, Dublin 11.

Maureen Lawlor, Finglas, Dublin 11.

Paula Lewis, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Eamon Loughman, Beaumont, Dublin 9.

George McDermott Raheny, Dublin 5.

Marcella McDermott, Raheny, Dublin 5.

William McDermott, Raheny, Dublin 5.

Julie McDonnell, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Teresa McDonnell, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Gerard McGrath, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Caroline McHugh, Artane, Dublin 5.

Donna Mahon, Raheny, Dublin 5.

Helena Mangan, Coolock,

James Millar, Twinbrook, Belfast.

Susan Morgan, Derry.

David Morton, Artane, Dublin 5.

Kathleen Muldoon Kells, Co. Meath.

George O'Conner, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Brendan O'Meara Coolock, Dublin 5.

John Stout, Coolock, Dublin 5.

Margaret Thornton, Dublin 8.

Paul Wade, Artane, Dublin 5.

and not forgetting the 215 injured...

 

13 February 1922: Four children and two women were killed by a bomb thrown into Weaver St Belfast by persons unknown but undoubtedly linked to to a Loyalist Terror Gang. 

 Ellen Johnstone (11) and Catherine Kennedy (15) died almost immediately; Elizabeth O’Hanlon (12) died the next day, and Rose-Anne McNeill (13) died on February 22nd. Many more suffered catastrophic injuries. Boys were injured too, as were adults. Two women subsequently died from their wounds, Maggie Smith (53) and Mary Owen (40). 

The city was in the grip of fear as hundreds of people on both sides were killed in sectarian attacks but an attack like this was unprecedented in its savagery as the perpetrators could have been in no doubt that the device they threw would land amongst innocent children.

‘On the evening of February 13th, 1922, just after 8.30pm, two suspicious looking men were spotted by residents of Weaver Street in north Belfast, a small Catholic enclave surrounded by Protestant districts. Despite it being mid-February, it was a crisp dry evening and children were playing on the street, boys with marbles, girls with a skipping rope tied to a lamp-post. Their parents watched them from their doorways.’

The following day, the Freeman’s Journal described the scenes at the Mater hospital: “When the wounded reached the hospital the entire staff was ready to receive them…Most of them had lost consciousness, but many were groaning and writhing in agony…Each child was carried into the hospital by the ambulance men, some of whom, hardened by contact with suffering, had been so moved by the scenes they had witnessed in Weaver Street, that they could ill repress the tears that welled into their eyes as they tenderly bore the groaning little ones into the building.”

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/why-don-t-we-remember-the-weaver-street-massacre-in-belfast-1.4797959

It was an atrocity that shocked the City and indeed the whole of Ireland. The inquest, before a jury and the City Coroner, James Graham, was heard on the 3rd March. The jury brought in a verdict that the deaths had been caused by a bomb ‘…wilfully thrown by some person unknown.’ The City Coroner then adjourned the inquest for two weeks and requested that the Minister for Home Affairs in the northern government, Dawson Bates hold an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Catherine Kennedy, Ellen Johnston, Eliza O’Hanlon and Rose Ann McNeill.

The northern government didn’t even discuss it at its next cabinet meeting (although it did discuss the site for a Stormont egg-laying competition). In a telegram to Michael Collins, Churchill (then Colonial Secretary) called it “…the worst thing to have happened in Ireland in the last three years“. Edward Carson wrote in his diary that there was no evidence the bomb was purposely thrown at the children. But his attitude was clear, as he wrote that even if it was it was only “…one among how many on the other side?“.

https://treasonfelony.wordpress.com/2016/02/09/awful-bomb-outrage-on-belfast-children/

In the aftermath of all this the last Catholic residents of  Weaver St were forced to flee and the whole street no longer exists. Nothing remains to remind people today what happened there 102 years ago this night.

 

12 February 1976: The Hunger Striker Frank Stagg died after 61 days on hunger strike in Wakefield Prison, Yorkshire, on this day. He had been on hunger strike in protest at the British government's refusal to transfer him to a prison in Ireland. He had been arrested in Coventry in 1973 and had been given a sentence of 10 years for criminal damage and conspiracy to commit arson. He initially went on Hunger Strike in 1974 along with others to gain repatriation to Ireland. In this strike his comrade Michael Gaughan died and Stagg felt a degree of moral responsibility for convincing him to embark upon it.

While other hunger strikers were sent back the British refused to move Stagg and he was incarcerated in Long Lartin Prison. Here he was subjected to prolonged periods of Solitary Confinement for and again went on hunger strike. Eventually the Prison Governor relented and Stagg called off his strike. In 1975 he was transferred to Wakefield Prison where he again refused to do prison work. Just before Christmas that year he and others again embarked on a Hunger strike. Their demand were: An end to Solitary Confinement; No Prison Work and Repatriation to Ireland. He died on 12 February 1976.

When his body was returned to Ireland his coffin was seized by the Government and buried under concrete so that it could not be interred in the Republican Plot in Ballina, Co Mayo. However in November 1976, a group of republicans tunnelled under the concrete to recover the coffin under cover of darkness and reburied it in the Republican plot.

 

11‭ February 1867: The abortive Fenian Raid on Chester Castle on this day. An audacious plan had been put together by the Fenian Leadership to seize the arsenal at Chester Castle in England.  The plotters would then bring the considerable stock of weapons and ammunition held there to Ireland where they would be distributed to the volunteers in order to overthrow British rule. So much for the plan - but the night before it was to be put into operation the whole scheme was betrayed to the local police by an informer from within the Movement. It had been betrayed by John Carr, alias Corydon who was a paid informer. The cache of rifles had been removed from the castle and the garrison quickly reinforced by another 70 regular soldiers from Manchester.

Despite efforts to turn their men back,‭ an estimated 1,300 Fenians reached Chester, in small parties from Manchester, Preston, Halifax, Leeds and elsewhere. Mostly, they discarded what few weapons they had and melted away. The next day, with nothing now happening, a further 500 household troops arrived by train from London in time for a tumultuous reception and breakfast at Chester hotels.

The man who was the mastermind of the projected operation was John McCafferty,‭ ‬US Citizen and an ex Irish American soldier who had served in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. Once he realised that his cover had been blown he effected a quick escape with the intention of making it back to Dublin. His accomplice was John Flood and as a result of the hunt now on for them they decided to return to Ireland by collier and not a passage steamer which were all being watched. The ship they returned home on was called the New Draper.

However,‭ when the New Draper arrived at Dublin on the 23rd February 1867, the harbour was being watched. The two Fenians were to be put ashore from the vessel in an oyster boat, but were spotted by policemen, and their vessel was pursued in a chase across the river Liffey involving a ferry, a canal boat and a collier and the men were arrested. Ultimately they were tried for ‘High Treason’ and McCafferty was sentenced to life imprisonment,  but he was released under an Amnesty in 1871.

 He returned to the US where he kept up the Fenian Campaign against Britain. He went back to Ireland in the 1870’s and became involved in Mayo bye election of 1874. After a further period of revolutionary activity when he became involved with the Invincibles he went back to America and disappeared.

 

10‭ February 1173: The death of Muiredhach Ua Cobhthaigh [O’Coffey], the Bishop of Cenel-Eoghan on this day. He was a respected ecclesiastical figure in the North of Ireland and the focus of his influence was in the land of Tír Eoghan [Tyrone].

 While little is known about him during his time on Earth his eulogy in the Annals makes for interesting reading as to what was expected of an Irish Bishop in the 12th Century - Purity, wisdom and innocence were all prized virtues that Muiredhach practised. He ordained Priests and Deacons. He renovated and consecrated Churches and cemeteries and also built Churches and Monasteries throughout his Diocese. He was a man of great Charity and bestowed food and clothing amongst the wretched and unfortunate of his flock. As his end approached he did penance and made his way on his last pilgrimage to the monastery of Colm Cille at Derry and ‘sent forth his spirit unto heaven’ at this sacred place.

The night of his death coincided with a great astronomical event over the skies of Ireland when what was perhaps a large comet or meteor swept by the Earth at a very close distance overhead:

Now, a great marvel was wrought on the night he died,—the night was illuminated from Nocturne to the call of the cock and the whole world [was] a-blaze and a large mass of fire arose over the place and went south-east and every one arose, it seemed to them it was the day. And it was like that by the sea on the east.

Annals of Ulster 1173 A.D.

 

9 February 1815: Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first Lady botanist, died on this day. Miss Hutchins was a self effacing girl who kept herself to herself and steered a lonely path through this world. For solace in her life she turned to the study of the Natural World in the shores and creeks of her native Bantry in south west Ireland. Her pioneering work helped lay the foundations of the study of this Country’s Natural Flora and Fauna.

Ellen was born in 1785 at Ballylickey House, Bantry, Co. Cork, one of the six surviving children of Thomas and Elinor Hutchins. Her father was a wealthy protestant tenant of a catholic landowner, Lord Kenmare. But her father died when she was very young and eventually she was packed off the Dublin to stay with a Dr William Stokes and his family at Harcourt Street, Dublin. Dr Stokes was Professor of Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1800 and he had a keen interest in botany, founding the Botanic Gardens at Trinity in 1806.  It was through Dr Stokes that Ellen met the next of her mentors, James Townsend Mackay, the first curator of Trinity’s Botanic Garden.

‘Ellen’s particular branch was in cryptogamic botany, the study of non-flowering plants (the term ‘cryptogam’ does indeed come from the same root as ‘cryptic’). These algae, mosses, liverworts and seaweeds to which Ellen devoted her keenest attentions, were vastly understudied compared to the more easily observed flowering plants. In addition, Ellen was collecting specimens in the Bantry Bay environs, an area containing an interesting dispersal of rare flora. The combination of very good eyesight and great artistic talent meant that she could render the fine detail of species in exquisite detail.’

‘Her field work was done in the Bantry environs in her early twenties. Between 1809 and 1811, she identified and listed (in Latin) around 1100 plants around Bantry Bay. Her distant cousin and friend Thomas Taylor most likely got her on to collecting shells and she began studying molluscs.’

Source: Charlotte Salter-Townshend @  http://womensmuseumofireland.ie/articles/ellen-hutchins-1785-1815

But alas Ellen’s life was not a happy one. She had been forced to return to the family home in Bantry to look after her aging mother and her brother who was an invalid. Her outings in search of specimens was her only break from a life of drudgery and toil. To make matters worse her elder brother kicked them out of the family home and they had to move away. Ellen herself was sick herself by this stage.  She was consumptive and taking mercury for a liver complaint – the effects of which had reduced the young woman to ‘a mere skeleton’.

Eventually her situation overwhelmed her and it would appear she did away with herself. She was buried in an unmarked site outside the south wall of Garryvurcha Church, Bantry. Her invalid brother Thomas passed away a few months later.

William Henry Harvey was greatly influenced by the work of Ellen Hutchins. Years after her death, wrote in 1847 of her lasting effect on Irish botany in his work Phycologiae Brittanica:

‘[Her] name is held in grateful remembrance by botanists in all parts of the world. To her the botany of Ireland is under many obligations, particularly the cryptogamic branch, in which field until her time little explored. She was particularly fortunate in detecting new and beautiful objects, several of which remain the rarest species to the present day.’

Salter-Townshend

https://ellenhutchins.com/

 

8‭ February 1847: Daniel O’Connell’s last speech in the British House of Commons on this day. In his final speech in the House, he predicted that unless more aid was forthcoming from the British Government for Ireland ‘one quarter of her population will perish’. His warning to his fellow MPs came as the full force of the Famine was raging in his final speech in the House, he predicted that unless more aid was forthcoming from the British Government for Ireland ‘one quarter of her population will perish’.

His warning to his fellow MPs came as the full force of the Famine was raging in Ireland.‭ The terrible outcome of the successive failures of the Potato Crop threatened to overwhelm the relief efforts at home to alleviate the worst excesses of hunger and disease that were sweeping across most of the Country at that time.

His valedictory address in the House was almost inaudible and those assembled to hear what would clearly be his last speech before them strained to catch his softly spoken words.‭ Observers reflected that he was but a dim shadow of his former self. He that on so many previous occasions had roused the House to heights and depths of emotions now struggled to exert himself so that his message of appeal could be heard and acted upon. He told the members that he had come to plead for the last time for Ireland. He made an accurate but terrible prophecy and that was:

Ireland is in your hands...‭ your power. If you do not save her she can't save herself... I predict... that one quarter of the population will perish unless you come to her relief.‬

He stated that if they did not come to help her he solemnly called on them to recollect that he predicted that such a calamity would come to pass.

But O’Connell knew that while he was paid a respectful deference due to reputation and status as a powerful orator and due to his visibly declining health,‭ ‬that the members of the House of Commons had but a limited interest in Irish affairs and that his heartfelt and sincere appeal fell on deaf ears. He remarked some weeks after this noble but doomed appearance that:

How different it would all be if Ireland had her own Parliament.

Daniel O’Connell died in Genoa on the 15 May on his way to Rome. His heart was sent on to the Holy City [and later disappeared!] and his body returned to Ireland where it was interred in Glasnevin Cemetery Dublin, which he himself had helped to found. 

 

7 February 1988: Nora Herlihy, one of the founders of the modern Irish Credit Union system, died on this day.

Nora Herlihy was born on 27 February 1910 in Ballydesmond, on the Cork-Kerry Border. She attended school in Newcastle West at the Sisters of Mercy Secondary School and trained to become a teacher at Carysfort College, graduating in 1931. She began teaching in Ferrybank and in 1936 was hired by the Irish Sisters of Charity school in Dublin. She was a national school teacher, educating in Dublin during the 1950s. As a teacher she observed the effects of poverty, unemployment and money-lending on her students and their families.

Herlihy was a student of the Liberal Arts Extramural Course at University College Dublin. There she met social economics student Tomas O'Hogain who invited her to a December 1953 meeting with Seamus MacEoin about the co-operative model. In March 1954 she and O'Hogain founded the Dublin Central Co-operative Society with the goal of reducing unemployment and emigration through the formation of worker co-operatives. The United States' Credit Union National Association (CUNA) asked Herlihy to form a subcommittee to examine how the credit union model could be put to use in Ireland. With Sean Forde and O'Hogain she formed the Credit Union Extension Service.

 In 1957, Minister for Industry and Commerce Seán Lemass appointed Herlihy to a legislative advisory committee on non-agricultural co-operatives. The first two Irish credit unions were formed under Herlihy's influence in 1958 and she promoted credit unions throughout Ireland. She was instrumental in the formation of the Civil Service Credit Union and the Irish League of Credit Unions, which was founded in 1960 and run from the living room of her Dublin house.

She served as unpaid secretary for the organisation, teaching full-time and funding the movement's development with her earnings. In 1963 the board of the Credit Union League of Ireland recognized her as having made the greatest individual contribution to the Irish credit union movement. Her efforts aided the passage of the 1966 Credit Union Act and she stood beside President Éamon de Valera as he signed the act into law.

Nora Herlihy died on 7 February 1988, 28 years after the creation of the Irish League of Credit Unions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nora_Herlihy

 

7 February 1072 AD: Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó, king of Leinster, died on this day. He was one of the most colourful and dynamic Irish kings of the 11th Century and an ambitious ruler of his own province that wished to rule over all of Ireland. While he never achieved that lofty aim it was not for want of trying. He was of the Uí Cheinnselaigh, who had their base around the monastical centre of Ferns in Co Wexford. His family had long been excluded from the kingship of the Laigin and he was the first member of this ancient sept to hold the position in centuries. By the time Diarmait acceded to the kingship in 1042 his familial domains included sway over the Viking towns of Wexford and Waterford and with it access to Trade and Fleets that enhanced his power and wealth.

However his breakthrough into the world of being a serious player in provincial politics and international affairs came in 1052 when he captured the city of Dublin and declared himself king – a feat not even Brian Boru had accomplished. The acquisition of one of the main trading entrepots of north western Europe meant that King Diarmait had direct control over a powerful fleet of warships and merchantmen.

These vessels plied their way up and down the Irish Sea and interlinked into a vast trading network that stretched to Spain and North Africa to the south and across to the great rivers of Russia to the East. With this kind of naval power at his disposal he was not averse to using it and after installing his son Murchad as King of Dublin he had his offspring invade the Norse held Isle of Man in 1061 and put it under his rule.

Diarmait also became involved in the internal politics of Wales and Saxon England. He supported many of the Welsh Princes in their efforts to gain dominance in that Country. He most notably supported the attempts of Cynan ab Iago of Gwynedd to restore himself to power in north Wales, possibly in return for some kind of payoff in trade or suzerainty. In the winter of 1051/52 he had no less a visitor than Harold Godwinesson, the future King Harold of England, who sought refuge here against his enemies at home. After that King’s defeat and death at Hastings in 1066 his sons fled here and King Diarmait provided them with a fleet of sixty six ships to raid the coast of England and try to regain their Country for the Saxons. While they did not prevail the fact that the king of Leinster was where these hapless sons of the late king turned for help is indicative of his power and prestige at this time.

The King of Leinster was also active in engaging with his royal rivals within Ireland too. He allied with the Ulaid of the North and raided into Connacht and Meath. However it was in Munster he had his greatest success amongst the Gaels. He backed Turlough O’Brien as puppet king of that province, forcing the previous incumbent King Donnach to depart on a pilgrimage to Rome where he died. In 1067 he led a huge expedition into Connacht consisting of the men of Laigin, the Munstermen under Turlough O’Brien and a contingent from the kingdom of Breffni. A great battle was fought in which fell Aed O’Connor, the most powerful king of the western province. With this Victory there was no doubt that Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó was the most powerful king in Ireland and in effect an Ard Rí na hÉireann.

But while Fortune had favoured Diarmait for most of his life in 1070 tragedy struck when his beloved son Murchad died in battle against the men of Meath while on a raid. In 1072 it was Diarmait’s turn to go the way of all flesh when he too fell in battle against the warriors of the middle kingdom in the battle of Odba. His slayer was Conchobor ua Mael Sechnaill, of the traditional kings of Mide. Ironically his killer was himself treacherously slain the following year by his own nephew in an internal power struggle.

The Annals of the Four Masters records Diarmait’s death as follows:

"Diarmaid, son of Mael-na-mbo, King of Leinster, of the foreigners of Ath-cliath, and of Leath-Mogha-Nuadhat, was slain and beheaded in the battle of Odhbha, on Tuesday, the seventh of the Ides of February, the battle having been gained over him by Conchobhar O'Maeleachlainn, King of Meath. There were also slain many hundreds of the foreigners and Leinstermen, along with Diarmaid, in that battle. In it was killed Gillaphadraig O'Fearghaile, lord of the Fortuatha, &c.''

It was Diarmait’s career and his relative success that coined the phrase rí Érenn co fressabra that is ‘king of Ireland with Opposition’ and indeed that is a fair summary of where he stood when he fell beneath the weapons of his enemies.

 

6 February 1918 - Women in Britain and Ireland gained the right to vote in General Elections for the first time on this day. The Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed into Law by the British Parliament. It gave women over the age of 30 the right to vote and all men over the age of 21. The law said that women over the age of 30 who occupied a house (or were married to someone who did) could now vote.

This meant 8.5 million women now had their say over who was in Parliament - about 2 in every 5 women in the UK. It also said that all men over the age of 21 could vote - regardless of whether or not they owned property - and men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The number of men who could now vote went from 8 million to 21 million. This was a legislative Revolution as it meant that any future Parliament would have a very different profile than the current or previous ones.

The campaign to extend the Franchise to women had been a long and arduous one over many years with women protesting and been sent to prison and even dying to achieve electoral equality with menfolk at the polls. The Suffragettes were led by Emmeline Pankhurst who from 1905 led a militant campaign to change the law. In Ireland too women campaigned holding meetings, smashing windows and generally making a nuisance of themselves to draw attention to their cause. But the various groups here found no sympathy from either John Redmond the Nationalist Leader or Sir Edward Carson the Irish Unionist Leader.

Nevertheless when the ‘Khaki Election’ of December 1918 came round the only woman to win a seat as a Member of Parliament was  the Irish Revolutionary Countess Markievicz who amongst other things was a vocal supporter of the Suffragette Movement. However as an Irish Republican she refused to take her seat in the Westminster Parliament and pledged her allegiance to Dáil Éireann in Dublin instead. Britain had to wait until 1919 for its for its first female MP - one Lady Astor - who was born and raised in the USA.

Curious to note that while women in the United Kingdom had to wait until 1928 for the franchise to be fully extended to all women over the age of 21 in the Irish Free State this discrimination between the sexes was abolished in 1922 putting the Irish State well ahead of the British one in a woman’s Right to Vote.