8 May 1987: In an ambush at Loughgall Co Tyrone eight members of the IRA were shot dead on this day. It was the greatest loss of life suffered by the IRA since 1921. The attack was carefully planned and carried out by members of the British SAS Regiment and a small number of the RUCs Mobile Support Unit. They assembled over 30 soldiers well hidden behind roadside bushes and armed with an array of weapons incl. heavy machine guns in order to take out  the Active Service Unit that intended to attack and blow up Loughgall RUC Station.

How they managed to crack the IRA plans for that day has never been revealed. But the IRA modus operandi was not a new one and it was a reasonable surmise on their part that an isolated outpost like the one at Loughgall would be on a list of IRA targets. As in all operations of this sort a detailed reconnaissance would have been necessary to scout out the weakest points and best escape routes. The most likely explanation is that at this stage the operation was compromised - though an informer in the ranks or plain ‘loose talk’ could well have undermined what was afoot.

On the evening in question the plan was to drive a digger up to the gates of the station with a  400lb bomb hidden in its bucket and blow them open and at that stage IRA Volunteers hidden in a van would leap out & then rush the building and kill the RUC Officers inside. But by then the regular garrison had been withdrawn and a small but well armed group of SAS and RUC men were inside ready to repel any such attempt to take the place by storm.

As soon as the digger was in place the IRA blew it and caused considerable damage to the the building as well as injuring some of those inside. At that moment the SAS opened up with a massive hail of gunfire that swept through the men on the digger and inside the van. Some of them made a run for it but were cut down and killed. Unbeknownst to the British there were at least two scout cars in the immediate vicinity that were there to ferry the IRA members away to safe houses but despite that they were able to drive away in the aftermath without being intercepted.

The IRA men who died that day were: Volunteers Declan Arthurs, Seamus Donnelly, Tony Gormley, Eugene Kelly, Paddy Kelly, Jim Lynagh, Padraig McKearney and Gerard O’Callaghan were members of the East Tyrone Brigade IRA. Civilian Anthony Hughes was also killed that evening when he and his brother inadvertently drove into the SAS ambush.

7 May 1915: The liner 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. Dinning 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 sank 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 and 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.

RMS LUSITANIA

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.

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.

The chief Traitor James Carey was known to the others as No 1 of the Invincibles and he was a Dublin City Councillor. His turning Queens evidence brought him freedom but put his life in mortal danger. He was spirited off to London and with his family was dispatched by ship bound for Australia. .

His life being in great danger, he was secretly, with his wife and family, put on board the Kinfauns Castle, bound for the Cape, and sailed on July 6 under the name of Power. On board the same ship was Patrick O'Donnell, a bricklayer. He became friendly with Carey, without knowing who he was. After stopping off in Cape Town, he was informed by chance of the real identity of Carey. He went with his victim on board the Melrose in the voyage from Cape Town to Natal, and when the vessel was 12 miles off Cape Vaccas, on July 29, 1883, using a pistol he had in his luggage, shot Carey dead. This he claimed he did in self defense when he challenged Carey and a gun was pulled on him.

O'Donnell was brought to England and tried for murder, and being found guilty by an English duty, was executed at Newgate on December 17.

James Carey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

4‭ ‬May‭ ‬1916‭ ‬-‭ ‬Edward Daly,‭ ‬Michael O’Hanrahan,‭ ‬William Pearse and Joseph Mary Plunkett were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail.‭ ‬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.

Edward "Ned" Daly  was commandant of Dublin's 1st battalion 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.

William Pearse was Padraig Pearse’s younger brother and played only a minor part in the GPO during Easter Week. It is believed he was shot because of who he was rather than anything he did.

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 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.

3‭ ‬May‭ ‬1916‭ – ‬Padraig Pearse,‭ ‬Thomas Clarke and Thomas MacDonagh were executed at dawn  by firing squad on this day.‭ ‬They‭ ‬were shot in the stonebreakers yard [above] of Kilmainham Jail,‭ ‬Dublin on the orders of General Maxwell.‭

‭Pearse, MacDonagh and Clarke were all shot minutes apart by a firing squad of British soldiers drawn from the Sherwood Foresters Regiment. They were commanded by a Major Rhodes. As far as we know all died bravely but while Pearse wished to die and Clarke reckoned execution was better than imprisonment again at the hands of the British it was a different story for McDonagh as he left a wife and young family behind him.

‭After their deaths had been confirmed the bodies were quickly transported to Arbour Hill prison where their remains were buried in quicklime. They were the first of 16 men to be executed for their part in the Rising. But their deaths rather than suppressing dissent ignited it and lit the spark that turned them from ‘Rebels’ into heroes.

2 May 1882: Charles Stewart Parnell , the Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party was released from Kilmainham Jail in Dublin on this day. He was let go under the terms of what became known as the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’.

Parnell had been incarcerated there on the personal orders of the British Prime Minister Gladstone back in October of the previous year. The Irish Leader had vehemently opposed Gladstone in his attempts to implement the 2nd Land Act that was meant to alleviate the rent many Irish people had to pay to rapacious Landlords. Parnell felt that it did not go far enough and roused the people to resist it. Agrarian unrest spread through much of the countryside and ‘Captain Moonlight’ ruled the hours of darkness - that is by night the laws of the British ceased to operate in many of the villages and fields of Ireland.

Under the terms of the ‘The Kilmainham Treaty’ the British Prime Minister agreed that rent arrears due from some 130,000 tenants would be dropped and 150,000 leaseholders would be allowed the benefits of the 1881 Land Act. In return Parnell agreed to ‘co operate cordially for the future with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles and measures of general reform.’

It was seen as a triumph for Parnell as it made him the undisputed Leader of Nationalist Ireland and by daubing the agreement a ‘Treaty’ he gave people at home the impression that Ireland and Britain could negotiate as two recognisably separate political bodies - in other words as Nation to Nation.

1 May 664 AD: Solar Eclipse seen in Ireland on this day. This was probably witnessed in central and northern Ireland as it was also recorded over northern England too.

Darkness on the Kalends of May at the ninth hour

Chronicum Scotorum

By working backwards from our times to then astronomers are able to accurately fix the time on that day that the eclipse was at its deepest - 16.50 hours.

As best we can now determine it was first observed over western Ukraine, then across Poland and into Germany, crossing the North Sea it was seen over Northhumbria and then across the north of Ireland. It then made its way over the Atlantic to Newfoundland down the east coast of North America and into Mexico before petering out over the Pacific. Surely an event witnessed by millions of people at that time.

However the most reliable account of its exact date comes from the Irish Annals. They accurately recorded it as on the Kalends of May (1 May) of that year. This has been confirmed by modern scientific analysis and shows that the Annals at that time were contemporary entries made by the Monks of Ireland.

Such an event would have startled and bewildered the people of that time. To them it would have been seen as an evil portent. And indeed so it proved to be -  as late that Summer the Plague struck in Ireland and devastated the Country.