16 March 1988: The Milltown Cemetery attack in Belfast on this day. Dramatic and bloody scenes were witnessed by mourners in Milltown Cemetery as the thousands of attenders at the laying to rest of IRA volunteers came under attack by a lone gunman - Michael Stone.

On the 6th of that month the SAS had ambushed an IRA Active Service Unit on the British Colony of Gibraltar and shot them dead. They were unarmed and given no chance to surrender. They were Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Daniel McCann. When their bodies were released they were flown back to Dublin where thousands of people turned out in the pouring rain to pay their respects. A large funeral cortege accompanied the hearses as they began their journey north back to Belfast.

The attacks in Gibraltar drew worldwide publicity to what was happening in the North of Ireland and by the time the funerals were held journalists and cameramen were there in force to cover the proceedings. Usually what happened at Republican funerals was that the Crown Forces would swamp the event and harass and intimidate the mourners. However given that this would be a huge event with many thousands in attendance the British decided to draw back and observe from a distance. Word must have leaked though as the night before Stone was able to take his pick from a UDA arms dump in order to carry through on his plan to try and take out the senior Republicans likely to be present at the graveside - namely Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

On the day of the funerals Stone made his way incognito into Milltown Cemetery and mingled with the crowd. He claims to have acted alone but some witnesses recall him in the company of other strangers before hand. Eventually he struck by lobbing a number of fragmentation grenades into the mourners before bolting.

But his attempt to flee was quickly spotted and he was chased by numerous men and youths determined to catch him. He turned and fired and brought down a number of them - some fatally. He eventually made it onto a nearby motorway but had run out of ammunition by that stage. He claims a car was to meet him there but there was none. He was caught, beaten and knocked unconscious. He was almost certainly a dead man but an RUC mobile patrol rescued him and he was carried away. 

Convicted and sentenced he was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement 1998 but again in 2006 tried to attack his targets at Stormont and was returned to jail. He has [2021] recently been released back into the community.

Three people were killed while pursuing Stone: two Catholic civilians Thomas McErlean (20) and John Murray (26), and an IRA volunteer, Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh (30). During the attack about 60 people were wounded by bullets, grenade shrapnel and fragments of marble and stone from gravestones. Among those wounded was a pregnant mother of four, a 72-year-old grandmother and a ten-year-old boy.

While the North  was used to atrocities this one was filmed live by the World’s media and became Front page news. Anyone who witnessed it either there or on television is ever likely to forget it.

 

15 March 1852: Lady Gregory was born on this day. Isabella Augusta Persse was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote numerous short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced a number of books of retellings of stories taken from Irish Mythology.

On 4 March 1880 she married Sir William Henry Gregory at St Matthias church in Dublin . As the wife of a knight, she became entitled to be called "Lady Gregory". Their home at Coole Park, County Galway served as an important meeting place for leading Revival figures, and her early work as a member of the board of the Abbey was at least as important for the theatre's development as her creative writings. Sir William, who was 35 years her elder, had just retired from his position as Governor of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), having previously served several terms as Member of Parliament for County Galway.

He was a well-educated man with many literary and artistic interests, and the house at Coole Park housed a large library and extensive art collection, both of which Lady Gregory was eager to explore. He also had a house in London, where the couple spent a considerable amount of time, holding weekly salons frequented by many leading literary and artistic figures of the day. However Sir William died in 1892 and she never remarried. Their only child, Robert Gregory was born in 1881. He was killed in 1918 in Italy during World War One. His death was memorialised in a series of poems by W. B. Yeats.

During her time on the board of the Abbey Theatre before and after the War, Coole Park remained her home and she spent her time in Dublin staying in a number of hotels. At the time of the 1911 national census for example, she was staying in a hotel at 16 South Frederick Street. In these, she ate frugally, often on food she brought with her from home. She frequently used her hotel rooms to interview would-be Abbey dramatists and to entertain the company after opening nights of new plays. However in that same year she led a very successful Tour of the Abbey to the USA. She spent many of her days working on her translations in the National Library of Ireland. She gained a reputation as being a somewhat conservative figure and was universally known as ‘the Old Lady’.

She is best remembered today for her work in reviving the idea of Celtic Literature as expressed in the old tales and sagas and for her collaboration with William Butler Yeats in making the Abbey Theatre in Dublin the focal point of the ‘Celtic Revival’. They were close companions for years and Yeats came to rely on her a lot to get things done.

She died at home in Coole Park aged 80 from breast cancer and is buried in the New Cemetery in Bohermore, Co Galway. The entire contents of Coole Park were auctioned three months after her death and the house demolished in 1941.

Her plays fell out of favour after her death and are now rarely performed. Many of the diaries and journals she kept for most of her adult life have been published, providing a rich source of information on Irish literary history during the first three decades of the 20th century. Though her book Gods and Fighting Men; The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of The Fianna of Ireland are still in print.

Lady Gregory's motto was taken from Aristotle: "To think like a wise man, but to express oneself like the common people.''

 

14‭ ‬March 1921: Six members of the IRA were executed in Dublin on this day. The men were hanged in Mountjoy Jail. Another prisoner charged, Dermot O’Sullivan, had his sentence commuted to Life Imprisonment, as he was just 17 years old but the sentences of death were confirmed on the rest of them by the general officer commanding (GOC) the British Forces in Ireland Sir Nevil Macready.

Paddy Moran and Thomas Whelan were hanged for actions they were said to have been involved in on Bloody Sunday in November‭ 1920.Paddy Moran had previously fought in Jacobs Garrison in Easter Week 1916, under Thomas Mac Donagh. He had also been imprisoned in England. He was rounded up after Bloody Sunday in November 1920 and charged with involvement in shooting a British Officer dead. He strongly denied this but was sentenced to death by a British Court Martial.

Thomas Whelan was arrested in November‭ 1920 and brought to Kilmainham Jail. He was then transferred to Mountjoy to await sentence. He was charged with the shooting of another British Officer on Bloody Sunday. He too strongly denied the charge. His mother went to Dublin during the trial which lasted several days, and was present outside Mountjoy on the morning of the execution. He sang ‘The Shawl of Galway Grey’ for her the night before he went to the gallows. 

The four other men were hung for taking part in an ambush in the Dublin suburb of Drumcondra. Their names were Patrick Doyle,‭ Bernard Ryan, Frank Flood and Thomas Bryan. As no British soldiers were killed in the ambush it was decided to charge the men with ‘with high treason and levying war against the King’ which obviously was no act of treason in their eyes. 

Patrick Doyle‭ was a carpenter, married with four children and an active member of the Dublin Brigade. His brother Seán was fatally wounded at the Custom House 6 weeks later. One of Doyle’s infant twins died 2 days before his own execution.

Bernard Ryan was an apprentice tailor,‭ and the only son of an elderly widow, with whom he lived with in Phibsborough. He was born and bred in Dublin, went to St. Gabriel’s N.S. in Cowper Street. He became a clerk in a city firm, and was the breadwinner for his family. Described as quiet and practical, he was renowned for his love of the Irish language.‬ Bernard “Barney” Ryan who was just 20 when he went to the gallows. In a letter written on the eve of his execution he wrote to a letter to a friend [above]:

“Excuse this uncivilised note, but it is only written to tell you the worst has come. Young Sullivan was reprieved and we’re off on Monday. So if you don’t get any more news from me, all I ask is your prayers so slán leat.”

Frank Flood was a very close friend of Kevin Barry’s,‭ and was a student in UCD, which he attended under a scholarship. Prior to that he had been a student in O’Connell’s School, Dublin. He asked to be buried as close as possible to Kevin. He was a lieutenant in H Coy, First Battalion. He was the leader of the ambush. His brother Alfred J. Flood became a Deputy Commissioner in An Garda Síochána.‬

Thomas Bryan was an electrician and married just four months before his arrest.‭ In 1917, he took part in the hunger strike in Mountjoy in which Thomas Ashe died. After that he spent time in Dundalk Prison. He was active in the War for Independence before he was captured. ‬

March‭ 14 was a day of public mourning in Dublin; all business was suspended until 11 am. Before dawn crowds began to assemble outside Mountjoy Jail; sacred pictures and candles were set up in the streets and around these about twenty thousand people stood, praying and singing hymns. When the bells tolled at six o’clock for two executions, again at seven o’clock and again at eight, the people fell on their knees to pray for the dying; their emotions of grief and anger were overpowering. An impression remained which nothing could efface.  ‬

The Irish Republic By Dorothy Macardle

That evening members of the Dublin Brigade IRA intercepted an Auxiliary Raid on a Republican HQ on Great Brunswick St. [now Pearse St] in which two Volunteers Leo Patrick Fitzgerald & Bernard O’Hanlon were shot dead & a member of SF David C. Kelly also died. The Crown Forces admitted to two dead and three civilians were also killed in this bloody affair in the aftermath of the hangings in Mountjoy Jail.

ADD: Death of Lady Lavery OTD in 1935

 

13‭ March 1846: The Ballinglass Evictions took place on this day. The local landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Gerrard, had the population of this village in Co Galway evicted in order to turn over the land to grazing. Hundreds of men, many with their rent money still in their hands, along with their women and children were left on the side of the road.

‘The village of Ballinglass consisted of‭ 61, solidly built and well-kept houses, with thick plastered walls. None of the inhabitants were in arrears with their rent, and had by industry reclaimed about four hundred acres from a neighbouring bog. On the morning of the eviction a large detachment of the 49th infantry commanded by Captain Brown and numerous police appeared with the sheriff and his men…. the people were officially called on to give up possession, and the houses were then demolished - roofs torn off, walls thrown down. The scene was frightful; women running, wailing with pieces of their property, clinging to door-posts from which they had been forcibly removed; men cursing, children screaming with fright…

That night the people slept in the ruins‭; next day they were driven out, the foundations of the houses were torn up and razed, and no neighbour was allowed to take them in.’

The Great Hunger

By Cecil Woodham Smith

This outrageous action was widely reported and condemned.‭ ‬However not all were of the opinion that the landlords had overstepped the mark. Lord Brougham, speaking in the House of Lords on 23 March was of the opinion that:  

The tenants must be taught by the strong arm of the law that they had no power to oppose or resist…it was the landlord’s undoubted,‭ indefeasible and most sacred right to deal with his property as he wished.

However his fellow Lord,‭ and one of the great landowners of Ireland, The Marquess of Londonderry, speaking in the House of Lords on 30 March that year stated that:

I am deeply grieved,‭ but there is no doubt concerning the truth of the evictions at Baltinglass. Seventy six families, comprising 300 individuals had not only been turned out of their houses, but had even – the unfortunate wretches – been mercilessly driven from the ditches to which they had betaken themselves for shelter.

Nevertheless despite widespread condemnation the evictions were never rescinded.

 

 

12 March 1689: King James II landed at Kinsale, Co Cork on this day. He brought with him some 6,000 French soldiers, attended by a French fleet of over forty warships and transports. On board were 13,000 seaman manning over 2,200 naval guns. King Louis XIV provided him with a purse of 500,000 crowns. His presence here was somewhat forced upon him as he was reluctant to start a Civil War but he was prevailed upon by his mentor, the King of France, to lead an Expedition to Ireland to attempt to regain the Crowns of England, Ireland and Scotland.

King James was an experienced Admiral & soldier and (he had fought with Turenne) and his valour was not in doubt. But the King had not fought in a land campaign since the Battle of the Dunes in 1658 – ironically enough against an Anglo-French Army. He had fought with distinction against the Dutch at sea but his last taste of a naval battle had been in 1672 after which King Charles (his older brother) forbade him to engage in action again.

During the years of the Restoration James Duke of York became increasingly drawn to the Catholic Religion and secretly converted. However such a momentous decision could not remain unknown forever and eventually his conversion became known at Court and within Parliament. The Test Act of 1673 meant he had to relinquish the position of Lord High Admiral and leave England for a while. He bided his time however and when his elder sibling suddenly died in 1685 he was crowned King James II in his place. The new King was accepted but not loved by the English Protestants. His rigid interpretation of Royal prerogatives and his promotion of Catholic favourites to positions of power and influence welled up into open discontent within the Protestant Oligarchy.

However the tipping point came in the Summer of 1688 when a male heir (the future ‘Old Pretender’ James III) was born. With a Catholic succession now guaranteed the Protestant nobles appealed to William of Orange for help. He landed with a Dutch Army at Torbay in November and some weeks later James was forced to flee to France to seek the protection his most Christian Majesty Louis XIV. Within weeks a force was assembled to be dispatched to Ireland in order to deflect William IIIs attention away from the Low Countries and to give the exiled King James at least a fighting chance of success.

And so it happened that the king landed at Kinsale on the twelfth of March, 1688, old style, that is 1689, new style; with whom came count D'Avaux, ambassador from Louis XIV., the most Christian king, general de Rosen, lieutenant-general Pusignan, lieutenant-general Momont, monsieur Boisselau; James Fitzjames, the duke of Berwick; William Herbert, the duke of Powis; Thomas Cartwright, the Protestant bishop of Chester, in England; the earl of Melfort, Henry FitzJames, lord grand prior, and several others, French, English, Irish, and Scots, lords, knights, gentlemen, officers, and chaplains. The king arrived that night at the city of Cork; from thence he took his journey straight to Dublin, the capital of the kingdom.

A light to the blind

When he landed at Kinsale that day King James’ chances of success looked reasonable. He had a well-trained and well-armed force with him and the promise of substantial aid from the Catholics of Ireland in his endeavour. If he could drive the Protestant armies out of Ireland then he could look forward to at least regaining one of the Kingdoms of his Realm that he considered his own by right of Succession. Alas for this Stuart Monarch the fates were against him and his cause. The following year after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne he fled Ireland never to return and died an exile in France on 16 September 1701.

 

11‭ March 1857: Thomas J. Clark, founding member of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic, was born  on this day. He was born on the Isle of Wight where his soldier father was stationed at the time. He joined the IRB in 1883 but was soon arrested in London for bombing activities and sentenced to Life imprisonment. The conditions he was held in were very harsh and his time in captivity was recalled in Clarke’s Glimpses of an Irish Felon’s Prison Life (1922). In 1896, he was one of five remaining Fenian prisoners in British jails and a series of public meetings in Ireland called for their release. He then spent some years in America after marrying Kathleen Daly and after a happy period there they returned home to Ireland in 1907.

Clarke opened a tobacconists shop adjacent to O’Connell Street and from here he helped to organize resistance to British rule.‭ ‬With the Home Rule Crises of‭ ‬1912-14 volunteers were organised North and South on both sides and armaments flowed into the Country. Through all of this Clarke kept a low profile but behind the scenes he was active in organising for a Rising. Clarke was also the main link with John Devoy, Joseph McGarrity and other supporters in the United States. As a member of the IRB Supreme Council, in late 1915 Clarke was co-opted onto its Military Council. The real work now began with a view to using the cover of the Great War to strike a blow at Britain while her interest lay elsewhere.

At Easter‭ 1916 when the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was drawn up Clarke was given the honour of being the first signatory to place his name on the document. This was due to the recognition by his partners in the enterprise for the years of suffering and dedication he had given to the Cause. Though he opposed the ending of the Rising he accepted the result and was prepared for what was to come. He was tried before a British Military Court and found guilty. He was executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail on 3 May 1916.

He was buried at the Arbour Hill Cemetery‭ (‬at the rear of the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks) in Dublin and the plot in which 14 of the executed Leaders were buried is now a National Monument.

 

11 March 1597:A Huge explosion rocked the quays of Dublin on this day. On a dry and breezy Friday afternoon over 400 years ago the city of Dublin was rocked by the greatest and most deadly explosion ever recorded in its history. At least 126 people were killed and many hundreds more injured by this devastating eruption on the Quays.

The source of the explosion was the many barrels of gunpowder that had been unloaded at the Wood Quay on the south side of the River Liffey. Stored in the open they were awaiting transportation to Dublin Castle where they were to be distributed to the English Army in Ireland. A dangerous situation had arisen due to a labour dispute with the carters and porters whose job it was to move them off the docks. Basically they instituted as 'go slow' that week and with such an accumulation of barrels of powder the potential for a devastating outcome was greatly increased.

The barrels had to be landed by a lighter making its way up the Liffey as the shallow draught of the river back then made it difficult for merchant ships to sail up it. The lighter moored itself adjacent to the City Crane mounted on the Crane House. This was situated more or less where Winetavern St meets the Liffey Quays at Wood Quay.

On that fateful day the craneman was one Stephan Sedgarve. Just as the clock over the Bridge Gate struck the hour of one in the afternoon and as Sedgarve was manoeuvring the very last four barrels on to the Quay the whole thing went up and blew asunder the hapless craneman, the Crane House and some 20 other dwellings in the vicinity of the eruption. At least 126 people were killed and many hundreds more injured - a casualty list that would have been higher except for the hour of day when many of the Port's officials had departed for lunch and by the fact that most of the carters and porters were some distance off as they were reluctant to move the cargo until their dispute was resolved.

An Official Enquiry under the Lord Mayor Michael Chamberlain was set up to establish what exactly had caused the explosion but no satisfactory explanation was ever reached. There were reports of children rolling a barrel of gunpowder either in play or in theft or that a horse's hoof had let a spark amongst the deadly cargo. But with the immediate area a gaping crater in the ground and all that stood near dead or missing nothing could be said for sure:

Richard Toben, mr porter of Dublin, of the age of 55 yeares or thereabouts likewise sworne and duly examined deposeth, that he this depont being at the Crane, the daie and yeare aforesaid helping to put out the powder, and leaving eche barrell at the Crane dore readie to be carried awaie by suche as the Q. officers had apointed, the children of the streete and other persons there standing idle and not hired, fell a rowling of the powder; but who the children or persons were that so rowld them this depont. did not well note or knowe them.

He further deposeth that Thadie Carroll servant to John Allen, clarke of the Storehouse, was there put taking the note of the barrells, and Patrick Carroll the said Thadies brother was loading the same upon carrs, the owner of one of the carrs his name is Derbie Ferrall, and the owner of the other he knowetil not.

OFFICIAL ENQUIRY

One hundred and forty-four barrels of powder were sent by the Queen to Dublin, to her people, in the month of March. When the powder was landed, it was drawn to Wine-street, and placed on both sides of the street, and a spark of fire got into the powder; but from whence that spark proceeded, whether from the heavens or from the earth beneath, is not known; howbeit, the barrels burst into one blazing flame and rapid conflagration which raised into the air, from their solid foundations and supporting posts, the stone mansions and wooden houses of the street, so that the long beam, the enormous stone, and the man in his corporal shape, were sent whirling into the air over the town by the explosion of this powerful powder; and it is impossible to enumerate, reckon, or describe the number of honourable persons, of tradesmen of every class, of women and maidens, and of the sons of gentlemen, who had come from all parts of Ireland to be educated in the city, that were destroyed. The quantity of gold, silver, or worldly property, that was destroyed, was no cause of lamentation, compared to the number of people who were injured and killed by that explosion. It was not Wine-street alone that was destroyed on this occasion, but the next quarter of the town to it.

Annals of the Four Masters

CELT: The online resource for Irish history, literature and politics

Dublin's Great Explosion 1597

Colm Lennon

History Ireland