On This Day Posts

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…

Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington (1877 - 1946), suffragette, feminist, nationalist, and socialist was born in Kanturk Cork on 24 May 1877. On marrying her husband, Francis Skeffington, in 1903, they took each other's last names as a demonstration of equalit…

William Drennan (1754 - 1820) republican, polemicist, poet, and physician was born in Belfast on May 23, 1754. Inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions, he was one of the primary movers in the United Irishma…

Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (1852 - 1932) was born in Galway on March 15, 1852. Despite being born into an Anglo Irish family, Lady Gregory would have a profound nationalist impact on Ireland. While a gifted writer, Lady Gregory’s most pro…

James Plunkett author of Strumpet City, one of the best books on Dublin was born on 21 May 1920 in the Hibernian metropolis. Strumpet City details the lives of common Dublin folk and their hero, James Larkin, and is a must-read for anybody that want…

Playwright, Seán O’Casey (1880 - 1964) was born on March 30, 1880, in Dublin into a Protestant family of modest circumstances. O’Casey’s father, Micheal, died when Seán was five years old leaving a family of 13 behind…

Mary MacSwiney (1872 - 1942) was born in London on March 27, 1872. She was the oldest of seven children born to a staunchly separatist father and English mother. At age seven the family moved to Cork in 1879 where her younger brother Terence was bor…

Olympic Gold medalist runner, Ronald Michael Delany was born in Arklow, County Wicklow on March 6, 1935. Delany showed promise as a schoolboy athlete and in 1954 at age 19 had a breakout year setting multiple Irish records in the half-mile and secur…

Robert Emmet in profile by John Comerford Robert Emmet was born in Dublin on the 4th of March, 1778. He was the 17th child of Dr Robert and Elizabeth Mason. Despite the family’s prosperous circumstances only four of the seventeen children wou…

Actor and beauty Harriet Smithson (1800 - 1854) was born in Ennis, Clare into a theatrical family. She made her debut on the Dublin stage in the Theater Royal at the age of 14. Some 4 years later she first appeared in London at the Theatre Royal to …