7 October 1921: Eamon de Valera, the President of Ireland issued secret instructions to the plenipotentiaries about to depart to London on this day. They were to begin negotiations with the British Government to secure a Treaty that would give recognition to Ireland’s claim to be an independent Nation.

They were as follows:

(1) The Plenipotentiaries have full powers as defined in their credentials.

(2) It is understood however that before decisions are finally reached on the main questions that a despatch notifying the intention of making these decisions will be sent to the Members of the Cabinet in Dublin and that a reply will be awaited by the Plenipotentiaries before the final decision is made.

(3) It is also understood that the complete text of the draft treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin and reply awaited.

(4) In case of break the text of final proposals from our side will be similarly submitted.

(5) It is understood that the Cabinet in Dublin will be kept regularly informed of the progress of the negotiations

　

De Valera was concerned that the meeting of the inexperienced Irish delegates with some of the most astute and clever minds in British politics would leave the Irish wrong footed and he wanted to ensure that any deal would have his Imprimatur on it before it was signed.

　

And indeed when the Treaty was signed in December of that year he was not happy with the result that gave the Irish Free State the status of a British Dominion rather than all of Ireland becoming an independent Republic.

 

6 October 1731: Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster was born on this day. She was the daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond & his wife Lady Sarah Cadogan. Charles was a direct descendant of King Charles II but by a liaison outside of marriage. While English by birth Emily was to spend  much of her life in Ireland. 

When she was 15 years old she fell madly in love with James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare. The FitzGerald's were of a noble and ancient Anglo-Irish family who had been for many centuries influential in the affairs of Ireland. James was in his early twenties and something of ‘a man about town’ so it was decided that the best course of action was to marry them off as soon as possible. After their wedding in London, the couple returned to Fitzgerald's native Ireland, first residing at Leinster House in Dublin and then at their country estate Carton House in County Kildare. It was landscaped under the supervision of Emily in the then very fashionable jardin anglais manner popularised by Lancelot “Capability” Brown. They were to have seventeen children together incl. Lord Edward Fitzgerald who was a prominent member of the United Irishmen in the Rising of 1798 and died of wounds he received when he was captured by the forces of the Crown.

While by eighteenth century standards the union was a relatively successful one there is no doubt that her husband spread his affections elsewhere outside of the marriage bed. Emily though turned a blind eye to her husbands many infidelities and got on with raising her children. Though given her wealthy circumstances (James was one of the wealthiest men in Ireland) she would have had numerous maids and manservants to assist her in their upbringing. After the death of her parents she also helped raise her younger sisters and took them into her household. 

Lord Kildare was created successively Marquess of Kildare and then the 1st Duke of Leinster in recognition of his contribution to the political life of his country. After the death of the Duke in 1773 the Duchess caused a minor sensation by marrying  her children's tutor William Ogilvie. He was a dour Scotsman who was a tutor to her children, with whom she had begun an affair some years earlier. To get away from the gossip and scandal associated with marrying someone of a much lower status in Society they got married in Toulouse in France. Despite her remarriage she continued to be known as The Dowager Duchess of Leinster. Ogilvie was nine years her junior, and was the natural father of her youngest son from her first marriage. They returned from France in 1779 &  eventually settled in Ardglass, Co Down where Ogilvie worked hard to develop the village as a going concern. She bore him three children two of which survived till adulthood. 

She had three sisters Caroline (1723–74), Louisa (1743–1821), and Sarah (1745–1826) who married prominent men and attracted varying degrees of admiration or notoriety. A fifth sister - Cecilia -died aged 19, and two others in infancy. Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster died in Grosvenor Square London on 27 March 1814.

 

5 October 1968: A Civil Rights march attended by some 2,000 people and organised by local activists and the NICRA was attacked by the RUC in the Waterside district of Derry. Serious rioting then erupted in the wake of the breaking up of the demonstrators. That night and the following day further clashes occurred and some 80 members of the public and 11 RUC men were injured. The pictures subsequently shown on TV throughout Britain and Ireland and further afield awoke large bodies of public opinion to the sectarian nature of the northern State and from that day on the ‘Troubles’ in the North were to be continually front page news.

'The Civil Rights march in Derry on 5 October 1968 was organised to draw attention to a series of grievances over issues related to housing, employment and electoral practices in the city. The driving force behind the idea for the march was a group of left-wing radicals who, through the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) and other organisations, had been taking non-violent direct action to try and improve conditions in the area. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was contacted and following a meeting the NICRA decided to support the proposed march. When the march was publicised Loyalists announced that they were holding an 'annual' parade on the same day, at the same time, and over the same route. The Stormont government then issued a banning order on all marches and parades. When the demonstration went ahead the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) blocked the route of the march and then baton charged the crowd. The scenes were recorded by television cameras and the subsequent news coverage sparked rioting in Derry. Most commentators consider the 5 October 1968 to be the start date of 'the Troubles'.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/events/derry/sum.htm

To most people in these islands outside the North the outbreak of political violence there came as profound shock. As the months rolled by in the aftermath of the events in Derry that weekend the situation spiralled out of control. By Christmas it was obvious that a new set of ‘Troubles’ were beginning - and God only knew where it would all end...

 

4 October 1957: Sputnik/Спутник over Ireland. The Soviet Union amazed the World when it launched the first man made object into orbit around the Earth – Sputnik 1 - on this day. Sputnik was a small silver-coloured ball 58cm (2 feet) in diameter, with four frond-like antennae and two radio transmitters. Radio stations rushed to record and re-broadcast the crackly 'beep-beep' signal emitted by the satellite, and it became an iconic sound for a new era - the space generation. The signals continued for 21 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957.

By a fortuitous coincidence the trajectory of the satellite brought it over Ireland and many thousands of Irish people were able to witness the birth of the Space Age. The rocket booster used to launch the metal ball was visible high in the night sky as it orbited the Earth. People from Dublin drove up into the Dublin Mountains to see it more clearly away from the city lights and were not disappointed to see the distinct object as it made its way overhead – incl. Yours truly!

I remember it as a red dot high above  and indeed I had no idea what I was doing up in the mountains looking at the dark sky with my mother and uncle. I recall other people out of their cars doing the same thing. It was only many years later that I pieced it all together as to what this curious recollection buried in my childhood memories actually was.

So for once I can say I witnessed a major historical event and the birth of an Age: The Space Age!

 

3 October 1981: The Irish Hunger Strike of 1981 ended on this day. The remaining prisoners on the strike in the H Blocks [above] of Long Kesh issued a statement which read in part:

We, the protesting Republican prisoners in the H-Blocks, being faced with the reality of sustained family intervention, are forced by this circumstance, over which we have little control at the moment, to end the hunger strike...

Our comrades have lit with their very lives an eternal beacon which will inspire this nation and people to rise and crush oppression forever and this nation can be proud that it produced such a quality of manhood...

We reaffirm our commitment to the achievement of the five demands by whatever means we believe necessary and expedient. We rule nothing out. Under no circumstances are we going to devalue the memory of our dead comrades by submitting ourselves to a dehumanising and degrading regime.

On 6 October 1981 James Prior, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced a series of measures which went a long way to meeting many aspects of the prisoners' five demands.

The hunger strike of 1981 had very important and far-reaching consequences and proved to be one of the key turning points of 'the Troubles'. The Republican movement had achieved a huge propaganda victory over the British government and had obtained a lot of international sympathy. Active and tacit support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) increased in Nationalist areas. Political support for Sinn Féin (SF) was demonstrated in two bye-elections (and the general election in the Republic of Ireland) and eventually led to the emergence of SF as a significant political force in Irish politics across the Country.

The Republican prisoners who died on Hunger Strike that year were:

Bobby Sands

Francis Hughes

Ray McCreesh

Patsy O'Hara

Joe McDonnell

Martin Hurson

Kevin Lynch

Kieran Doherty

Thomas McElwee

Michael Devine

 

2 October 1600: The Battle of the Moyry Pass /Cath Bealach na mhaighre on this day. The 'Gap of the North' was the traditional invasion route between Ulster and Leinster going back centuries. It began with a clash of arms between the forces of Aodh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone and the army of the English Viceroy, Lord Mountjoy. He brought with him some 3,000 foot soldiers and 300 cavalry to try and crush O'Neill's revolt against the English Queen Elizabeth I. The size of O'Neill's force is unknown but was probably in the range of 1,500-2,000 men of all arms.

The battle was initiated by Mountjoy who tried to force his way through the pass (south of Newry on what is now the Border between Co Louth & Co Armagh), which the Irish had fortified. His forces were repulsed with loss and despite repeated attempts over the following days he could not break the Irish lines.

On the 9th he withdrew towards Dundalk. Honour satisfied and with his supplies low the Earl withdrew towards Dungannon. When the English advanced into the Pass that O’Neill had vacated and saw the strength of the defences one wrote that he never saw:' a more villainous piece of work, and an impossible thing for an army to pass without intolerable loss.'. 

Mountjoy then cautiously advanced through the Pass to build Fort Norris and in which he placed a garrison of some 400 men. But Mountjoy knew he could not sustain his stay so deep in Ulster with a full army when Winter was coming and  he withdrew back to Dundalk, not through the Moyry pass (where an ambush was possible), but by way of Carlingford. However O'Neill attacked him anyway when he withdrew and harassed his columns from the woods as they marched by the lough.

The Moyry Pass was not forced. When the campaign was over Mountjoy boasted that he had let the Irish know ‘that their fortifications, though very great, were not the hindrance of our passage’; he claimed that he had been held up not by O’Neill but by bad weather. But he did not move North until O’Neill had got out of his way.

Irish Battles - G.A. Hayes McCoy

However the lateness of the season meant this campaign was now over. O’Neill had done enough to stymie the Viceroy’s attempt to take Dungannon that year and cost the English hundreds of casualties in their futile attempts to take his power base. But Irish losses were heavy too and O'Neill could not so easily replace the expenditure of arms and munitions like Mountjoy was capable of so doing. Tactically he had defeated Mountjoy at the Pass but operationally it at best could be described as a holding measure and strategically it was the case that Mountjoy had gained a minor foothold inside Ulster ever closer to Dungannon...

Map from Irish Battles - G.A. Hayes McCoy

 

1 October 1795: St Patricks College, Maynooth/Coláiste Naoimh Phádraig, Maigh Nuad opened its doors on this day. This was a seminal moment in the history of Church-State relations in Ireland as an accommodation was reached - that would see the British Government fund the training of Catholic priests in Ireland! Before this seminarians went abroad to complete their training for the priesthood. It was hoped that such a gesture would at least mean that the Irish Catholic Hierarchy would acquiesce in upholding the Law in Ireland and discourage and condemn any violent attempt at its overthrow.

This arrangement came about as a direct result of the 1789 French Revolution which saw the overthrow of the Monarchy there and the persecution of the Catholic Religion. Many priests and prelates had to flee France and return home. The Seminaries in France and others in places conquered by the Revolutionary Armies were thus no longer available. 

At home the winds of Revolution were blowing across the land - and the distinct possibility of an Insurrection weighed on the minds of the British. The Catholic Church was the strongest and most cohesive entity amongst the Catholic People. With the Penal Laws being abolished one by one the need to bring the Church within the fold was an imperative that became daily more apparent. In 1795 the British brought in the Maynooth College Act which was: An Act for the better Education of Persons professing the Popish, or Roman Catholick Religion. It provided a modest grant to establish a college.

'The Bishops began to look for a site. It was desirable that the College be near Dublin, but they found themselves not exactly welcome in several desirable locations. They settled on Maynooth because the local magnate, the Duke of Leinster, was benevolent, and his Duchess even more so. This more than compensated for the fact that Maynooth was a little more distant from the city than they would have wished. The College opened in the autumn of 1795 in a house recently built by John Stoyte, steward of the Duke.'http://maynoothcollege.ie/seminary/history/

Since then the College has trained over 11,000 priests and while also a lay college when it opened that closed in 1817. However since the 1970s more and more lay students have been taken in. Today they make up the vast majority of students in attendance and Maynooth is now one of the major centres of learning in Ireland.