15 October 1945: The death of Eoin MacNeill occurred in Dublin on this day. Born in County Antrim he became a scholar of the Irish language, a prominent nationalist, a revolutionary and a politician.. He was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, founded to preserve the Irish language and culture. In 1909 he was appointed foundation Professor of Early Irish History in UCD and was elected to the first Senate of the new NUI where, along with Douglas Hyde, he campaigned to make Irish a compulsory subject for entry to the university. 

While primarily a scholar and cultural activist, in an article entitled ‘The North began’ in An Claidheamh Soluis [Sword of Light] on 1 November 1913, McNeill advocated the formation of a national volunteer force on the lines of the Ulster Volunteer Force. The organisation was established in Dublin on 25 November with the intent to back the push for Home Rule by force of arms if necessary.

He was Chief of Staff of the Irish Volunteers at the time of the Easter Rising but was kept out of it and indeed tried to stop it as he foresaw a bloody failure if it went ahead. On the eve of the planned  Rising ( 22 April 1916) he issued his infamous countermand order to try and stop the Rising going ahead:

"Volunteers completely deceived. All orders for tomorrow, Sunday, are completely cancelled...

As a result the Revolt went off at half cock and only in Dublin did enough Volunteers turn out to be able to make a go of it to take on the British Army in battle. But for all his attempts to stop the Rising he was interned in Frognoch Camp in Wales with the other prisoners taken in the aftermath and remained under British suspicion on release.

He supported the Treaty in 1921 and held the Cabinet position of Minister of Education in the first Free State Government. He represented the State on the Anglo Irish Boundary Commission in 1925 but resigned when the findings were leaked to a British newspaper. He lost his seat in the 1927 General Election. In that same year he was the first man to come across Kevin O’Higgins as he lay fatally injured after being shot near his home on Booterstown Avenue in Blackrock, Co Dublin.

He retired from politics completely and became Chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. He published a number of books on Irish history incl. Phases of Irish History (1919) and Celtic Ireland (1921) His work on early Irish History was ground breaking esp. his study of Kingship and succession rights in Ireland before the Anglo Norman Invasion in 1169 AD. Indeed he was one of the first Irish Historians to make a serious attempt to divide fact from myth in the study of the ancient sources of Irish History. His works are still of value today as one of the foundation stones of modern historical study in this Country.

14 October 1318 : The Battle of Faughart, also known as the Battle of Dundalk, was fought on this day. It was between an Anglo-Irish force led by John of Birmingham and Edmund Butler, and a Scots-Irish army commanded by Edward Bruce, claimant to the Crown of Ireland and brother of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland. Edward was killed in the battle. The defeat and death of Edward de Bruce at the battle ended the attempt to revive an independent Kingdom of Ireland. It also ended the attempt of King Robert of Scotland to open up a second front against the English in the Anglo-Scottish Wars.

Edward had invaded Ireland with an Army of 6,000 men in May 1315 and initially swept all before him. But his arrival here coincided with the start of a Great Famine that swept Europe that was caused by devastating climatic change. That and the cruelties his followers inflicted upon the guilty and innocent alike won him few converts outside of Ulster. Like Hannibal of old he could win battles and sweep the land, but he could not take the city of Dublin – the Capital of Ireland.

By 1318 his position was desperate as he saw his ambition to be King of Ireland in his own right slip away. He decided on a desperate gamble - to give battle before reinforcements could arrive from Scotland and thus lessen his own glory. Thus the two armies met at Faughart, on rising ground just north of Dundalk. Bruce had placed the few Gaelic forces that stayed with him at the rear. He divided his army into three divisions. This disposition proved disastrous, as the divisions proved to be easy targets for deBirmingham’s forces who simply destroyed them as they met and engaged with them. They were too far away from each other to provide any support to each other.

The English 'Chronicle of Lanercost' recorded:

The Scots were in three columns at such a distance from each other that the first was done with before the second came up, and then the second before the third, with which Edward was marching could render any aid. Thus the third column was routed just as the two preceding ones had been. Edward fell at the same time and was beheaded after death; his body being divided into four quarters, which were sent to the four chief quarters of Ireland. 

At the beginning of the battle, Edward Bruce refused to wear the sur-coat bearing his coat of arms. This was worn by his man-servant Gib Harper, who fought beside his master. Both master and servant were killed by an English soldier called John Maupas, but not before Maupas himself had sustained a fatal sword thrust. All three were found together after the battle in which many Scottish nobles who had followed Bruce since the beginning of the campaign, were also killed.

After Edward's death his body was quartered and his limbs sent to various places in Ireland, with his head being delivered to Edward II, the King of England. Tradition holds that his torso was then buried in nearby graveyard.

His defeat and destruction at Faughart was as unexpected as it was sudden but the termination of this terrible war was greeted with relief as it brought to an end a bleak and dark chapter in Ireland’s History. One in which the provinces of Ulster and Leinster bore the brunt of the devastation and in which armies of both sides freely indulged at the cost of the inhabitants both Irish and English who suffered greatly in these harshest of years. 

Edward Bruce, the destroyer of all Erinn in general,
both Foreigners and Gaeidhel, was slain by the Foreigners of Erinn, and …
no better deed for the men of all Erinn was performed
since the beginning of the world, since the Fomorian race was expelled from Erinn, than this deed
for theft and famine, and destruction of men occurred throughout Erinn during his time
For the space of three years and a half
and people used to eat one another, without doubt throughout Erinn.
Annals of Loch Cé 1318 AD

13 October 1881: Charles Stuart Parnell MP was arrested in Morrison’s Hotel, Dublin and conveyed to Kilmainham Jail on this day. The British Prime Minister Gladstone had ordered Parnell’s arrest the previous night after a Cabinet meeting. He then and there dispatched Mr Foster (Britain’s Chief Secretary for Ireland) to Dublin with orders to capture the Irish Leader. Detectives Mallon and Sheridan of the ‘G’ Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police carried out the arrest. They arrived at the hotel and asked the hotel porter to request an interview with Mr Parnell. The leader of the Land League asked for time to dress and then called up his two visitors who were greeted with the words Do you intend to arrest me? – Yes - replied John Mallon.

The trio went downstairs and into a waiting cab, though Parnell refused to leave until he had been given 10% off the Bill! Mallon then gave the order to Kilmainham and they set off with a police escort to the notorious jail. Once there Parnell was incarcerated with the other political prisoners already held being held there. 

He wrote to his lover Katharine O’Shea when he was arrested:

‘Politically it is a fortunate thing for me that I have been arrested, as the movement is breaking fast and all will be quiet in a few months, when I shall be released’.

For the arrest of Parnell backfired on the British Government as left without a Leader the rural population increasingly turned to Captain Moonlight* to settle agrarian disputes - as Parnell had predicted at the time of his arrest!

By the start of 1882, Irish agrarian unrest escalated to unprecedented levels (3,433 episodes of agrarian violence were recorded) and it was clear to both Gladstone and Parnell that it was time to reach a compromise.

The 'Kilmainham Treaty' was agreed. The agreement was that Gladstone would amend the Land Act of 1881 to include tenants in arrears and leaseholders; drop coercion; and release ‘suspects’ in police custody. In return, Parnell would help to pacify the people of Ireland and co–operate with the Liberal Party in forwarding Liberal principles and measures of general reform. Parnell was released on 2 May 1882 and crossed directly to England where he made a dramatic appearance in the House of Commons.

http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Charles_Stewart_Parnell

* Attackers in the moonlight

12 October 1984: An IRA bomb at the Grand Hotel, Brighton killed five members of the Conservative Party and narrowly missed killing the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – it’s intended target. Until that time this was the most audacious attack ever undertaken against a British Leader. Thatcher was lucky in that her room was changed from the previous years and this saved her life. For the IRA bomber - Patrick Magee - had booked into her old room weeks previously and planted a bomb with a timing device primed to explode on the night she would arrive.

The bomb detonated at 2:54 a.m. on 12 October. The mid-section of the building collapsed into the basement, leaving a gaping hole in the hotel's façade. Firemen said that many lives were likely saved because the well-built Victorian hotel remained standing. Margaret Thatcher was still awake at the time, working on her conference speech for the next day in her suite. The blast badly damaged her bathroom, but left her sitting room and bedroom unscathed. Both she and her husband Denis escaped injury. She changed her clothes and was led out through the wreckage along with her husband and Cynthria Crawford (her friend and aide) and driven to Brighton police station.

Those killed were Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry, Eric Taylor (North-West Area Chairman of the Conservative Party), Lady Jeanne Shattock (wife of Sir Gordon Shattock, Western Area Chairman of the Conservative Party), Lady Muriel Maclean (wife of Sir Donald Maclean, President of the Scottish Conservatives), and Roberta Wakeham (wife of Parliamentary Treasury Secretary John Wakeham). Donald and Muriel Maclean were in the room in which the bomb exploded.

Several more, including Margaret Tebbit—the wife of Norman Tebbit, who was then President of the Board of Trade—were left permanently disabled. Thirty-four people were taken to hospital and recovered from their injuries. When hospital staff asked Tebbit whether he was allergic to anything, he famously answered "bombs".

That night the IRA issued a statement:

Mrs. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it. Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war.

11‭ ‬October 1741: Birth of James Barry, the great neo Classicalist Painter, in Cork on this day. His contemporaries considered Barry a child prodigy. He started painting while still in Cork and then moved to Dublin. There he produced several large pictures, which decorated his father's house, such as Aeneas escaping with his Family from the Flames of Troy, Susanna and the Elders and Daniel in the Lions' Den. The painting that first brought him into widespread public notice, and gained him the acquaintance and patronage of Edmund Burke, was founded on an old tradition St Patrick visiting Cashel, and of the conversion of its king in The Baptism of the King of Cashel by St Patrick. 

After some time in Dublin he made his way to London where he gained the patronage of Edmund Burke and won renown for his artistic talent.‭ ‬He then went on an extended tour,‭ ‬first to Paris, then to Rome, where he remained upwards of three years,‭ ‬from Rome to Florence and Bologna, and thence to Venice. He returned to London in about 1771. There he produced his picture of‭ ‬Venus, which was compared to the Galatea of Raphael, the Venus of Titian and the Venus de Medici.

He is‭ ‬best remembered though for his six part series of paintings entitled The Progress of Human Culture in the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts in London, in which city he made the rest of his career.

He produced numerous paintings in the course of artistic career that varied greatly in accomplishment but little in style.‭ ‬He was determined to follow his own path in life and in Art and while this won him admiration it also lost him friends and more crucially Patrons in an Age when patronage was essential to social advancement. 

He died in London on‭ 22 February 1806 and the following month his remains were interred in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Above: Self portrait circa 1803: National Gallery of Ireland

10 October 1918: The sinking of the mailboat RMS Leinster in the Irish Sea on this day. The ship was sunk by a German submarine and went down very rapidly. Over 560 men, women and children were drowned. It was the greatest loss of life suffered by an Irish owned vessel in the 20th century. The ship had set sail that morning from Kingstown [Dún Laoghaire ] for Holyhead, Wales. On that morning the Leinster carried about 180 civilians, 77 crew, some 500 soldiers and 22 postal workers. She was only just over the horizon soon after 10am that morning when disaster struck. The first torpedo hit her forward on the port side which blew open the mail sorting office aboard and killed many of the Royal Mail employees.

RMS Leinster (2,640 gross tons) was built in 1897 at Laird Brothers, Birkenhead for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. At the time she was one of the fastest ships at sea with a speed of 24 knots.

Captain Birch ordered the ship to make a U-turn in an attempt to return to port but the ship began to settle slowly by the bow; however the ship sank rapidly after a third torpedo struck her, causing a huge explosion. Attempts were made to launch the lifeboats but panic ensued as there was a mad scramble for them.

The ship's log states that she carried 77 crew and 694 passengers on her final voyage and at least 564 people are known to have been drowned - the vast majority serving military personnel from the British Army, Royal Navy and the RAF. Captain Birch was lost in the rescue operation undertaken by HMS Lively, Mallard & Seal. Survivors were brought ashore at Kingstown where emergency services treated them.

Ironically the U Boat that sank her was herself lost soon after. The UB-123 was probably lost in a minefield in the North Sea on its way back to Germany, on or about 19 October 1918. The bodies of her commander Oberleutnant zur See Robert Ramm and his crew of two officers and thirty-three men were never recovered.

The sinking of the Leinster had international ramifications. Delicate behind the scenes negotiations were going on to bring the War to an end. When US President Wilson heard the news he stalled the talks telling the Germans that, amongst other things there could be no peace as long as Germany attacked passenger ships. This was technically true but the ship was protected by Royal Navy sailors and armed with a 12 pounder. She was painted in camouflage colours and was carrying serving military personnel returning to Active Service. To the Germans she would have been seen as a legitimate target.

Nevertheless within days the German High Command realised the game was up. On 21 October Reinhard Scheer, Admiral of the German High Seas Fleet, signalled his submarines:
"To all U-boats: Commence return from patrol at once. Because of ongoing negotiations any hostile actions against merchant vessels prohibited. Returning U-boats are allowed to attack warships only in daylight. End of message. Admiral."

One Month later the War was over. In the months and years that followed the loss of the Leinster was forgotten due to the great events that followed in Ireland in the aftermath of the War. It is only within the last decade or so that this tragedy has finally been given recognition as something that has its place in Irish History.

9 October 1834: The first railway in Ireland - the Dublin to Kingstown [ Dún Laoghaire] line - opened for business on this day. The novelty of a railway for commercial purposes was a relatively recent one the first being the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. The town of Dún Laoghaire some eight miles south east of Dublin possessed a deep water port that was viable for vessels that could not make it up the river Liffey. A group of businessmen decided to develop a rail line between the two urban centres to turn a profit from this new mode of transportation.  For this purpose a company was formed the Dublin and Kingstown Rail Company, with a capital of £200,000, and the necessary Act of Parliament (I & 2 Wm. IV, Cap. 69) received Royal assent on 6th September 1831. 

From the start though the scheme met with opposition from two different landowners who insisted on large cash compensations and in the case of Lord Cloncurry  the building of a private foot bridge over the line to a bathing area complete with a Romanesque temple, a short tunnel and a cutting to maintain his privacy!

The contract was given to William Dargan, son of a tenant farmer from near Carlow, who had already established a reputation as a road and canal builder. Work began in April 1833. At one stage 1,800 men were toiling away. Work at the Dublin end went on around the clock. At night the scene was lit by coal and wood fires and blazing tar barrels.

The Dublin Penny Journal of 25th October 1834, gives the following description:

On the 9th instant a train of carriages, crowded with ladies and gentlemen, proceeded the entire length of the line from the station-house at Westland Row to Salt-hill. There were eight carriages attached to the train; one of the first class, three second, and four of the third class. The first trip was made by the locomotive engine called the 'Hibernia",* and with the many disadvantages attendant on a first starting, the trip to the station-house at Salt-hill was performed in fifteen minutes and a half; and back to Dublin in twenty-two and a half minutes Having joined in one of these trips we were delighted with the perfect ease and safety with which it was performed; there is so little motion perceptible even when going at the quickest rate, that we could read or write without the slightest inconvenience.
The Neighbourhood of Dublin: The History of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway
Weston St. John Joyce

* The Hibernia had been specially built for the Dublin and Kingstown Rail Company by Richard Roberts, a Welsh engineer. 

Full services began in November but contrary to the expectations of the investors from the start (as elsewhere) it proved to be hugely popular with the general public who flocked to the carriages in droves to go on excursions. The line (with some adjustments) is still in operation today and is one the oldest in the world to still do so.

    Illustration: John Harris (1791-1873) : Train leaving Westland Row station, Dublin.