21 November 1974: The Birmingham Pub Bombings on this day. Two bombs exploded in the British city of Birmingham. The bombs were planted by members of the IRA who gave totally inadequate warnings. Both bombs were planted in pubs in central Birmingham that were about 50 yards apart, the first in the Mulberry Bush at 8.17pm; the second in the Tavern in the Town 10 minutes later. Twenty-one people died, 182 were injured, many horribly so.

Most of the dead and wounded were young people between the ages of 17 and 25, including two brothers: Desmond and Eugene Reilly. One of the victims, 18-year-old Maxine Hambleton, had only gone into the "Tavern in the Town" to hand out tickets to friends for a party. She was killed seconds after entering the pub and had been standing beside the bag containing the bomb when it exploded. Her friend, 17-year-old Jane Davis, was the youngest victim of the bombings. The others who were killed by the bombs were Michael Beasley (30), Lynn Bennett (18), Stanley Bodman (51), James Caddick (40), Thomas Chaytor (28), James Craig (34), Paul Davis (20), Charles Gray (44), Anne Hayes (19), John Jones (51), Neil Marsh (20), Marylin Nash (22), Pamela Palmer (19), Maureen Roberts (20), John Rowland (46), Trevor Thrupp (33), and Stephen Whalley (21)

The was widespread revulsion and outrage at these atrocities, especially in England. This led to a backlash by some people against Irish residents in the UK. In the wake of the bombings a number of people were arrested and charged with organising and planting the devices that exploded.

Six men - ‘The Birmingham Six’ - were convicted of Murder and sentenced to Life Imprisonment. The men - Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker - were beaten while in police custody and always claimed that they had no part in the bombings and that any confessions were forced from them. Eventually after a long campaign they were declared innocent and freed in 1991. To this date none of the actual perpetrators have ever been convicted.

 

21‭ ‬November 1920: Bloody Sunday. IRA units organised around Michael Collins hit team ‘the Squad’ raided the premises of British spies and agents across Dublin City. The plan was to kill up to 35 men on the day. The core of this group were the notorious ‘Cairo Gang’ brought into Ireland specifically to gather information on IRA members in the City. Most of the ones on the hit list who were caught unawares did not escape. Others were more fortunate and made their escape just in time. In the event 14 people were killed incl at least one entirely innocent female victim. The IRA lost just one man captured. Nearly all of the raids were carried out in a small area of Dublin in the centre of the City.

The events of that morning rocked Britain’s spy network in the Capital to the core and in effect destroyed it as a viable espionage force.‭ Michael Collins justified what by necessity assassins’ work with the words:  

My one intention was the destruction of the undesirables who continued to make miserable the lives of ordinary decent citizens.‭ I have proof enough to assure myself of the atrocities which this gang of spies and informers have committed. If I had a second motive it was no more than a feeling such as I would have for a dangerous reptile. By their destruction the very air is made sweeter… For myself, my conscience is clear. There is no crime in detecting in wartime the spy and the informer. They have destroyed without trial. I have paid them back in their own coin.

That afternoon the Crown Forces raided Croke Park where Dublin were playing Tipperary and proceeded to open fire on the teams and spectators,‭ killing 14 innocent people (including two young boys and a 26-year-old woman). One of the dead was Michael Hogan who was playing for Tipperary that day.

Controversy as to who fired first was immediate with the Crown Forces insisting they were shot at before returning fire. However the most likely explanation is that members of the Auxiliary Division of the RIC fired warning shots in the air to panic the crowd and other members out of sight took it upon themselves to open up under the impression that IRA men in the crowd had targeted them.

A DMP Constable recounted to the Official Inquiry held in December 1920 by the British Military that:

‘On Sunday 21st inst. I was on duty outside the main entrance to Croke Park in Jones’s Road. At about 3.25 p.m. I saw six or seven large lorries accompanied by two armoured cars, one in front and one behind, pass along the Clonliffe Road from Drumcondra towards Ballybough. Immediately after a small armoured car came across Jones’s Road from Fitzroy Avenue and pulled up at the entrance of the main gate. Immediately after that, three small Crossley lorries pulled up in Jones’s Road. There were about ten or twelve men dressed in RIC uniforms in each. When they got out of the cars they started firing in the air which I thought was blank ammunition, and almost immediately firing started all round the ground.’

That night two senior members of the Dublin IRA,‭ Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy and a hapless civilian, Conor Clune, all of whom had been captured the previous day were done to death inside Dublin Castle ostensibly while ‘attempting to escape’.

 

21 November 615 AD: The death of St Columbanus at Bobbio in northern Italy on this day. Columbanus was the greatest of the Irish Apostles to preach the Faith on the Continent. He founded a string of monasteries that acted as bases from which his disciples spread the Word amongst the new Germanic kingdoms that emerged in the wake of the collapse of Roman power. Columbanus (the Latinised form of Columbán, meaning ‘the white dove’) was born in Ireland in 543, Prior to his birth, his mother was said to have had visions of bearing a child who, in the judgement of those interpreting the visions, would become a "remarkable genius". Columbanus was well-educated in the areas of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and the Holy Scriptures.

Columbanus left home to study under Sinell, Abbot of Cluaninis in Lough Erne. Under Sinell's instruction, Columbanus composed a commentary on the Psalms. He then moved to Bangor Abbey on the coast of north east Ireland, where Saint Comgall was serving as the abbot. He stayed at Bangor until his fortieth year, when he received Comgall's permission to travel to the continent.

So after many years there as a leading member of the community he felt the call to go abroad and spread the Gospel amongst the Heathens. With some reluctance he was allowed to depart by his mentor and took twelve followers with him. Proceeding through Scotland and England they made their way to eastern France to the Court of the King of Burgundy. Here Columbanus was well received and given the old castle of Annegray in the isolated Vosges Mountains upon which to found a Monastery. Here the abbot and his monks led the simplest of lives, their food oftentimes consisting of nothing but forest herbs, berries, and the bark of young trees. So great was the devotion to Columbanus and so great were the numbers who flocked to witness his Piety and Sanctity that soon another site was required to cope with the influx of followers and penitents. Thus a new site was established at Luxeuil just a few miles away and Columbanus ruled his religious domain from there. However his great success evoked jealousy amongst the Frankish bishops and they conspired against him. 

Forced to flee he made his way down the Loire to catch a ship home to Ireland but a great storm swept the vessel back into the Bay. Columbanus then decided that he would make his way back across France to the Rhine Valley in order to reach the Suevi and Alamanni, to whom he wished to preach the Gospel. After a couple of years of mixed success in what is now Switzerland his small band of followers reached northern Italy and the Court of King Agilulf at Milan in the year 612 AD. The King although a follower of the heretical Arian viewpoint was favourably disposed to Columbanus and gave him a plot of land on the Bobbio river near Genoa in which to establish himself. Here the Saint passed the last years of his life. 

Columbanus is best known in monastic circles for his set of ‘Rules’ which governed the way each monk within the community had to conduct themselves. The Rule of Saint Columbanus embodied the customs of Bangor and other Celtic monasteries. It consisted of ten chapters, on the subjects of obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, chastity, choir offices, discretion, mortification, and perfection.

However Columbanus did not lead a perfect life. According to his biographer Jonas and other sources, he could be impetuous and even headstrong, for by nature he was eager, passionate, and dauntless. These qualities were both the source of his power and the cause of his mistakes. His virtues, however, were quite remarkable. Like many saints, he had a great love for God's creatures. Stories claim that as he walked in the woods, it was not uncommon for birds to land on his shoulders to be caressed, or for squirrels to run down from the trees and nestle in the folds of his cowl. Although a strong defender of his Celtic traditions, he never wavered in showing deep respect for the Holy See as the supreme authority. 

It possible that Columbanus had travelled to Rome at some stage in his life to meet Pope Gregory to discuss various matters but he also communicated with his successor Pope Boniface on the Paschal question over when exactly Easter should be celebrated. The Celtic Church still followed the old ways of observance and Columbanus was eager to ensure that he did the right thing. He wrote to the Pontiff Theodore I that:

We Irish though dwelling at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of St. Peter and St. Paul. . . Neither heretic, nor Jew, nor schismatic has ever been among us; but the Catholic Faith. Just as it was first delivered to us by yourselves, the successors of the Apostles, is held by us unchanged . . . we are bound to the Chair of Peter, and although Rome is great and renowned, through that Chair alone is she looked on as great and illustrious among us…

By this stage Columbanus was over 70 years old and his end was approaching. He prepared for death by retiring to his cave on the mountainside overlooking the Trebbia River and when he died his remains were interred in the Abbey Church in Bobbio. His final resting place became a site of pilgrimage and was famed throughout Western Europe as the site where one of the Christianity’s greatest advocates lay buried. It still exists today. [above]

 

20 November 1917: The Battle of Cambrai began on this day. The British High Command under General Haig wished to take a major position on the German ‘Hindenburg Line’ - a very powerful and well defended set of lines and structures to which they had withdrawn to earlier in the year. The British adapted some novel tactics to take a chunk out of the German defenses before Cambrai that had not been tried previously on such a scale. The attack was to be carried out by General Byng’s Third Army in the nature of  a coup de main, “to take advantage of the existing favourable local situation” where “surprise and rapidity of action are … of the utmost importance”. 

Initially a British victory it overwhelmed the German defenses and made - by WW1 standards - a rapid advance. The key to such success was a very brief but extremely heavy initial bombardment and the mass use of  almost 500 Tanks that took the Germans completely by surprise. The use of numerous aircraft in a tactical role was also employed. The British High Command were somewhat surprised too as they failed to have enough Reserve divisions on hand to exploit their early gains. Some days later in England church bells were rung out to celebrate a ‘Victory’ for the first time since the War began in 1914.

On this day regiments from two Irish Divisions took part -  the 36th (Ulster) Division & the 16th (Irish) Division. The 36th was deployed on the main line of advance at Cambrai on the far left flank and the 16th was further north at Bullcourt in a major diversionary attack. The attack opened with an intensive predicted-fire barrage on the Hindenburg Line and key points to the rear, which caught the Germans by surprise. Initially, this was followed by the curtain of a creeping barrage behind which the tanks and infantry followed. At Cambrai the planes of the RFC were used overhead to mask the noise of the tanks moving up to their start lines. The 36th (Ulster) Division attacked well and moved up the dry excavations of the Canal du Nord, and lay alongside the Bapaume-Cambrai road by nightfall.

The following day the advance was to be renewed  & to the north, the 36th (Ulster) Division, planning to continue their advance beyond Moeuvres, waited for the success signal, signifying that the 62nd had captured Bourlon [Wood]. It never came, for the 62nd could not penetrate beyond the sunken lane facing the wood. By the evening of the 21st, Haig was satisfied that ‘no possibility any longer existed of enveloping Cambrai from the south’

http://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/battles/battles-of-the-western-front-in-france-and-flanders/the-cambrai-operations-1917-battle-of-cambrai/

At Bullcourt further north the 16th Division went ‘over the top’ that morning of 20 November to capture a position known as ‘Tunnel Trench’ - in actual fact a very well defended line of trenches and fortifications. The morning was overcast with low visibility but that would have helped to mask the advance. The operation was very successful catching the Germans off guard. A barrage of smoke shells had convinced many of the defenders that a gas attack was underway and they donned gas masks and took cover in their dug outs. They were quickly overrun and flushed out and taken prisoners. Only on the right flank was there any serious opposition as the Connacht Rangers came under severe counter attack as to their right the 3rd Division made little progress thus leaving the Connachts flank hanging in the air.

The Germans soon gathered their wits about them and counter attacked with devastating effect on 30th November. They quickly cut swathes out of the British Front line and took back not just ground they had lost 10 days before but fresh gains where they had not initially sought to take. Chunks of the British Front line collapsed with men streaming back to the rear. Of course eventually the German advance ran of steam and the British consolidated their positions. 

In the further battles around Cambrai the British Guards Division was thrown into action. It contained two Irish battalions - the 1st and 2nd battalions Irish Guards. They suffered heavy casualties in attacking Gouzeaucourt and in defending what part of Bourlon Wood that the British had managed to take. The Germans fought a determined action to take back this position as the wood was on the high ground that dominated the surrounding countryside. The British tried desperately to cling on but its advanced position made it untenable and eventually it was conceded to the Germans. What had started as a ‘Victory’ turned into yet another bloody mess with no overall victor. But the lessons both sides learned there were to be applied on a massive scale in the battles of 1918 which decided the War.

In a battle that created many anecdotes one stands out of Irish interest involving the Irish Guards in the aftermath of the capture of Gouzeaucourt:

One grim incident stays in the minds of those who survived—the sight of an enormous Irishman urging two captives, whom he had himself unearthed from a cellar, to dance before him. He demanded the jigs of his native land, and seemed to think that by giving them drink his pupils would become proficient. Men stood about and laughed till they could hardly stand; and when the fun was at its height a chance shell out of the darkness to the eastward wiped out all that tango-class before their eyes. (“’Twas like a dhream, ye’ll understand. One minute both Jerries was dancin’ hard to oblige him, an’ then—nothin’, nothin’—nothin’—of the three of them!”)

The Irish Guards in the Great War Volume 1

Rudyard Kipling

Picture: Men of the 11th Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers, with German prisoners near Havrincourt, 20 November 1917. - courtesy of the Imperial War Museum London - http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205215567

 

19 November 1984: The British Prime Minister made her infamous speech ‘Out, Out, Out’ at a news conference in London OTD. She had been asked a number of questions about the progress of Anglo-Irish talks in relation to the North of Ireland and the continuing Conflict there that seemed to unresolvable. She had earlier that day met the Irish Taoiseach Dr Garret Fitzgerald at Chequers and they had according to her had  ‘the fullest, frankest, the most realistic bilateral meeting I have ever had with the Taoiseach. We have not, in fact, come to decisions.’ However the Taoiseach was holding a separate news conference that evening and was unaware of what Mrs Thatcher was about to say.

Towards the end of the conference in which she was reserved in her comments & gave nothing away she bluntly told an RTE reporter exactly what was NOT going to be on the table for discussion down the line:.

RTE: Prime Minister, you said that you want political stability within Northern Ireland, within the United Kingdom. Could I ask you, in your view, does Dr. FitzGerald  therefore accept that what you are both working towards is an internal solution within Northern Ireland, within the United Kingdom, and by implication, does that mean that the British Government has for the foreseeable future ruled out the three main options within the Forum Report?

Prime Minister: I have made it quite clear—and so did Mr. Prior when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland—that a unified Ireland was one solution that is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty. We made that quite clear when the Report was published.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. She is part of the United Kingdom because that is the wish of the majority of her citizens. The majority wish to stay part of the United Kingdom.

The Forum Report indicated that they realized that any change in the status of Northern Ireland could only come about by the consent of the people of Northern Ireland, so we are dealing with a situation where Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom because the majority of her people wish to be part of the United Kingdom and we have a minority community.

That is the situation we are presented with.

https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/105790

This was a humiliation for Dr Fitzgerald who did not seem to realise the import of what she has said until he returned to Dublin and it finally sunk in with the media that he had been made to look like a supplicant and not an equal in these talks between the two States. Indeed Mrs Thatcher’s blunt words are still the official position of Her Majesty’s Government to this day...

19 November 1807: The sinkings of the Prince of Wales & the Rochdale Packet ships * in Dublin Bay on this day. A convoy of British troop transport ships set sail from Dublin. It comprised five ships: Sarah, Lark, Albion, Rochdale and the Prince of Wales. Two of the ships, the Rochdale and the Prince of Wales did not make it to their destination. The ships were part of a military fleet bound for Liverpool that had left Dublin that morning. Snow and sleet showers backed by a heavy wind developed as the ships made their way out of Dublin Bay and as night came on they were blown onto the sandbanks just off shore where the ships capsized and foundered. It is estimated that some 120 were lost from the Prince of Wales and about 265 from the Rochdale.

They ended up being wrecked on the South Bull in Dublin Bay, with the loss of approximately 380 lives. Public outcry was one of the key factors that brought about the construction of what is now known as Dun Laoghaire East Pier.

The Prince of Wales, the Parkgate packet ship, was a 103-ton wooden brig of Chester, originally built in Wales. It was en route to Liverpool with recruits from the South Cork and South Mayo Militia for the 18th and 97th Regiments. The stormy weather prevented the Prince of Wales from anchoring in Dublin Bay and it was forced to anchor off Bray Head in an attempt to gain some shelter. The wind direction changed and went SE, driving the Prince of Wales across Dublin Bay. It eventually ran ashore at Blackrock House. Captain Jones, the crew, two soldiers, a steward and his wife managed to get on board one of the ship’s boats and got ashore safely. The Prince of Wales started to break up soon afterwards and became a total wreck, with the loss of 120 lives. 

The Rochdale suffered a similar fate near Seapoint, just 20 feet from the shore. A brig of Liverpool, she was also on route with some passengers and 265 soldiers of the 97th Regiment. It encountered an easterly gale and a snow storm shortly after leaving Dublin Bay and was driven back into Dublin Bay by strong winds and could be seen from both Dalkey and Dun Laoghaire as it burned blue lights and fired guns as signals of distress. 

In an attempt to prevent the vessel from being blown ashore, several anchors were dropped, but these failed when the cables snapped. The vessel was driven helplessly past Dun Laoghaire Pier and went ashore on rocks under the Martello Tower at Seapoint, half a mile from where the Prince of Wales had gone ashore.

Even though the wreck was only yards away from the shore all 265 aboard, including 42 women and 29 children, perished as the poor visibility and darkness of the night prevented them from comprehending their exact position. The next day the lower hull of the Rochdale was found to be completely smashed out, but the decks were relatively intact.

http://emigrant.scoilpac.com

* like above

 

 18 November 1657: The death of the Luke Wadding on this day. He was a Franciscan Friar and an historian of the Order of Franciscans. He was also instrumental in establishing the Irish College in Rome to train priests to send back to Ireland to keep the Faith alive in the face of increasing attempts to suppress the Catholic Religion by the government of England.

He was born into a wealthy merchant family in the city of Waterford in 1588. After the death in 1602 of his mother from the Plague that was sweeping Ireland at the time he was sent to Portugal to begin his his religious studies at Coimbra in order to become a Franciscan friar & he was ordained a priest in 1613. He then moved to the University of Salamanca where he gained a reputation as a theologian with a particular interest in the historic and spiritual tradition of the Franciscan Order. He was chosen to be a member of the Spanish Embassy to the Papacy as  secretary & Theologian to the delegation. 

‘He worked with the commission on the immaculate conception, producing four volumes on the question. He edited concordances of the Hebrew and Latin Bibles. His fame as a scholar, however, mainly rests on his commentaries on the works of the Franciscan theologian Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and his masterly treatises on the history of the Franciscan Order, the Annales Minorum (the Order’s history from 1208 to 1540) and the Scriptores Ordinis Minorum (a collection of the primary sources of the Order). That he is regarded as the father of the history of the Franciscans to this day was recognised in January 2007, when the archive of the General Order in Rome was named after him.’ https://www.historyireland.com/volume-15/luke-wadding-1588-1657-the-only-irishman-to-receive-votes-in-a-papal-conclave/

With the assistance of Cardinal Ludovico Ludovis, the cardinal protector of Ireland and one of Wadding’s many influential friends in Rome, he founded St Isidore’s College in 1625. This was to train Priests to send back to Ireland to keep the Faith alive. He procured for the library 5000 select works, besides a precious collection of manuscripts bound in 800 volumes. During the first thirty years of its existence this college educated 200 students, 70 of which number filled chairs of philosophy and theology in various corners of Europe.  Each year Wadding kept the Feast of St. Patrick with great solemnity at St. Isidore's; and it is due to his influence, as member of the commission for the reform of the Breviary, that the festival of Ireland's Apostle was inserted on 17 March in the calendar of the Universal Church.

It had a precarious existence both financially & politically but somehow or other Luke Wadding kept the project going. He was an avid supporter of the Catholic Cause when the Rising of 1641 broke out and the Confederation of Kilkenny was established. He was instrumental in getting Archbishop  Rinuccini sent to Ireland with specie & weapons to fuel the Catholic Armies in the field here.

‘Wadding's fame as a writer and a critic rests chiefly on his monumental edition of Scotus, on the "Scriptores", and, above all, on the "Annales ord. minorum". In 1639 he published at Lyons a complete edition of the writings of the Subtle Doctor, in 16 volumes, having devoted four years to the proximate preparation. He corrected the text throughout according to the best manuscripts and earliest impressions, inserted everywhere critical notes and learned scholia, and enriched the edition with the commentaries of MacCaughwell, Hickey, Lychetus, Ponce, and others. It was a colossal undertaking, and would alone have immortalized his name. His life of John Duns Scotus, which is prefixed to the first volume, appeared separately in 1644.’https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15521d.htm

Historian and theologian he died at St. Isidore's College, Rome on18 November, 1657. He  was one of the greatest Catholic scholars’ of his day who upheld the Catholic Religion and Ireland’s cause to the end of his days.