During the 1640s and 1650s, a brutal war was waged across Ireland between Irish Catholics, British Royalists, British Parliamentarians, and Scottish Covenanters. This time of conflict was marked by extraordinary brutality and shifting alliances whic…

Cloughleagh Castle More than a decade of war raged across Ireland from 1641 - 1653. the Irish historian, Padraig Lenihan estimates that 20% of the Irish population perished in this conflict - some 200 thousand of the 1 million estimated to inhabit…

John Flanagan, the three-time Olympic Hammer champion athlete, was born on 9 January 1873 at Kilbreedy,  Limerick. He emigrated to America in 1896 where he joined the New York City Police Department. While in New York he rose to fame in athlet…

Daniel Pollen, the 9th Premier of New Zealand, was born in Ringsend in Dublin on the 2nd of June, 1812. Little is known of his early life until he arrived in New South Wales in Australia in the 1830s before moving on to Auckland, New Zealand in 1840…

John Thomand O'Brien was born in Baltinglass, Wicklow on the 24th June 1786. He emigrated to Brazil in 1811 where he attempted to set up a number of businesses in Brazil and then Argentina. O'Brien's efforts in the commercial domain proved to be uns…

Dany La Rue (1927 -2008) was born Daniel Patrick Carroll on 26 July 1927 in Cork. He is best remembered as a theatrical artist who performed both in and out of drag. Here he is performing in 1976 in The Good Old Days, a BBC TV series which recreate…

Poet, lyricist, and writer Thomas Moore (1779 - 1852) was born on Aungier Steet in Dublin City in 1779. He was born into a prosperous Catholic family and attended private school supplemented by private tutoring. In 1795, he entered Trinity College f…

Francis Beaufort was born in Navan Meath on May 27, 1774. He served in the British Navy for over 50 years rising to rear admiral and appointed as Hydrophager of the Navy. He is best remember for the Beaufort Scale which relates wind speed to observe…

Some 4,000 United Irishman gathered at the Hill of Tara in County Meath in late May of 1798. They camped on the hilltop with the intention of controlling the main Ulster to Dublin road and also likely occupied the site due to its cultural significan…

The Battle of Clontibret, part of the Nine Years' War began on May 25, 1595. It would prove to be a two-day rolling engagement between the Irish forces of Hugh O'Neill (1550 - 1616) and the English troops of Henry Bagenal (1556 - 1598) Bagenal an…