seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Category Archives: Irish History


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The Fenian Rising of 1867

The Fenian Rising of 1867, a rebellion against British rule in Ireland organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), begins in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary on March 5, 1867.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood is founded in Dublin by James Stephens in 1858. After the end of the American Civil War, the IRB hopes to recruit willing Irish veterans of that war for an insurrection in Ireland aimed at the foundation of an Irish Republic.

In 1865, the Fenians begin preparing for a rebellion by collecting firearms and recruiting men willing to fight. In September 1865, the British move to close down the Fenian newspaper The Irish People and arrest many of the leadership. In 1866, habeas corpus is suspended in Ireland and there are hundreds more arrests of Fenian activists.

In early 1867, prior to the March 5 rising, Thomas J. Kelly, Stephens’ successor as leader of the IRB, tries to launch an insurrection but it proves uncoordinated and fizzles in a series of skirmishes. In February 1867, there is an unsuccessful rising in County Kerry.

The largest of the March 5 engagements takes place at Tallaght, when several hundred Fenians, on their way to the meeting point at Tallaght Hill, are attacked by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) near the police barracks and are driven away after a firefight. A total of twelve people are killed across the country on this day. When it becomes apparent that the coordinated rising that had been planned is not transpiring, most rebels simply go home.

The rising fails as a result of lack of arms and planning, but also because of the British authorities’ effective use of informers. Most of the Fenian leadership is arrested before the rebellion takes place.

Though the Rising of 1867 is unsuccessful, they proclaim an Irish Republic, almost 50 years before the Proclamation of the Irish Republic in Easter 1916. This proclamation sheds some light on early Fenianism as it is centered with the ideas of republican democracy but is, however, flavoured with socialist ideals and a class revolution rather than a nationalist revolution per se. The proclamation claims that their war is “against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish” which denotes that their ideology at this time is in some way embedded in class differences against the landed aristocracy rather than merely against British rule.

The rising itself is a total military failure, but it does have some political benefits for the Fenian movement. There are large protests in Ireland against the execution of Fenian prisoners, many of whose death sentences are, as a result, reprieved. In 1873, the Irish Republican Brotherhood adopts a new constitution, which states that armed rebellion will not be pursued again until it has mass backing from the people. The Fenians cooperate with the Irish National Land League in the land agitation from the 1870s onwards and in the rise of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Not all Fenians agree with the new policy and several breakaway groups emerge that continue to believe in the use of political violence in pursuit of republican objectives.


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Birth of Irish Revolutionary Robert Emmet

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Robert Emmet, Irish nationalist, Republican, orator, and one of the most famous revolutionaries in Irish history, is born at 109 St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin on March 4, 1778. He is the youngest son of Dr. Robert Emmet, a court physician, and his wife Elizabeth Mason.

Emmet attends Oswald’s school in Dopping’s-court, off Golden-lane. He enters Trinity College, Dublin, in October 1793 at the age of fifteen. In December 1797, he joins the College Historical Society, a debating society. While he is in college, his brother Thomas and some of his friends become involved in political activism. Robert becomes secretary of a secret United Irish Committee in college and is expelled in April 1798 as a result. That same year he flees to France to avoid the many British arrests of nationalists that are taking place in Ireland. While in France, Emmet garners the support of Napoleon, who promises to lend support when the upcoming revolution starts.

After the 1798 rising, Emmet is involved in reorganising the defeated United Irish Society. In April 1799, a warrant is issued for his arrest. He escapes and soon after travels to the continent in the hope of securing French military aid. His efforts are unsuccessful, as Napoleon is concentrating his efforts on invading England. Emmet returns to Ireland in October 1802.

In March of the following year, Emmet begins to prepare a new rebellion, with fellow Anglo-Irish revolutionaries Thomas Russell and James Hope. The revolutionaries conceal their preparations, but a premature explosion at one of Emmet’s arms depots kills a man, forcing Emmet to advance the date of the rising before the authorities’ suspicions are aroused.

Despite being unable to secure help from Michael Dwyer‘s Wicklow rebels and many rebels from Kildare turning back due to the scarcity of firearms, the rising begins in Dublin on the evening of July 23, 1803. Failing to seize the lightly defended Dublin Castle, the rising amounts to a large-scale disturbance in the Thomas Street area. Emmet witnesses a dragoon being pulled from his horse and piked to death, the sight of which prompts him to call off the rising to avoid further bloodshed. However, sporadic clashes continue into the night until finally quelled by British military forces.

Emmet flees into hiding, moving from Rathfarnam to Harold’s Cross so that he can be near his sweetheart, Sarah Curran. He is captured on August 25 and taken to Dublin Castle, then later removed to Kilmainham Gaol. Vigorous but ineffectual efforts are made to procure his escape.

Emmet is tried for and found guilty of high treason on September 19, 1803. Chief Justice Lord Norbury sentences Emmet to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, as is customary for conviction of treason. The following day, Emmet is executed in Thomas Street near St. Catherine’s. He is hanged and beheaded after his death. Out of fear of being arrested, no one comes forward to claim his remains.

Emmet’s remains are first delivered to Newgate Prison and then returned to Kilmainham Gaol, where the jailer is under instructions to be bury the remains in a nearby hospital’s burial grounds if no one claims them. No remains have been found there and though not confirmed, it appears that he was secretly removed and reinterred in St. Michan’s Church, a Dublin church with strong United Irish associations. There is also speculation that the reamins are buried secretly in the vault of a Dublin Anglican church. When inspected in the 1950s, a headless corpse is found in the vault but cannot be identified. The widely accepted theory is that Emmet’s remains are transferred to St. Peter’s Church in Aungier St. under cover of the burial of his sister in 1804. In the 1980s the church is deconsecrated, and all the coffins are removed from the vaults. The church has since been demolished.


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The Founding of Trinity College, Dublin

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On March 3, 1592, a small group of Dublin citizens obtain a charter by way of letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I incorporating the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, later to become known as Trinity College (Coláiste na Tríonóide). It is one of the seven ancient universities of Britain and Ireland, as well as Ireland’s oldest university.

Originally established outside the city walls of Dublin in the buildings of the dissolved Augustinian Priory of All Hallows, Trinity College is set up in part to consolidate the rule of the Tudor monarchy in Ireland, and it is seen as the university of the Protestant Ascendancy for much of its history. Although Catholics and Dissenters have been permitted to enter since as early as 1793, certain restrictions on their membership to the college, such as professorships, fellowships, and scholarships, remain until 1873. From 1956 to 1970, the Catholic Church in Ireland forbids its adherents from attending Trinity College without permission from their archbishop. Women are first admitted to the college as full members in January 1904.

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Trinity College is now surrounded by Dublin and is located on College Green, opposite the former Irish Houses of Parliament. The college proper occupies 47 acres, with many of its buildings arranged around large quadrangles and two playing fields. Academically, it is divided into three faculties comprising 25 schools, offering degree and diploma courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

In 2015, Trinity College is ranked by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as the 160th best university in the world. The QS World University Rankings places Trinity as the 78th best. The Academic Ranking of World Universities has it within the 151–200 range. All three publications rank Trinity College as the best university in Ireland. The Library of Trinity College is a legal deposit library for Ireland and the United Kingdom, containing over 4.5 million printed volumes and significant quantities of maps, music, and manuscripts, including the Book of Kells.

On a side note, the organization of the exhibits within the main building of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas was inspired by the famous Long Room in the Old Library at Trinity College, which Bill Clinton first saw when he was a Rhodes Scholar.


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Birth of Irish Blues & Rock Guitarist Rory Gallagher

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William Rory Gallagher, Irish blues and rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader, is born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal, on March 2, 1948.

Both Rory and his brother Dónal are musically inclined and encouraged by their parents. At age nine, Gallagher receives his first guitar from them. After winning a talent contest when he is twelve, Gallagher begins performing with both his acoustic guitar and an electric guitar that he purchases with his prize money. It is, however, his purchase three years later of a 1961 Fender Stratocaster for £100 that becomes his primary instrument and most associated with him for the span of his lifetime.

Gallagher is initially attracted to skiffle after hearing Lonnie Donegan on the radio. While still in school, playing songs by Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran, he discovers his greatest influence in Muddy Waters. He begins experimenting with folk, blues, and rock music.

While still a young teenager, Gallagher begins playing after school with Irish showbands. In 1963, he joins one named Fontana, a sextet playing the popular hit songs of the day. The band tours Ireland and the United Kingdom, earning enough money for Gallagher to make the payments on his Stratocaster guitar. Gallagher begins to influence the band’s repertoire and successfully moulds Fontana into The Impact, changing the line-up into an R&B group. The band plays gigs in Ireland and Spain until it disbands in London, with Gallagher and the bassist and drummer continuing to perform as a trio in Hamburg, Germany.

In 1966, Gallagher returns to Ireland and forms Taste, a blues rock and R&B power trio. Initially, the band is composed of Gallagher and Cork musicians Norman Damery and Eric Kitteringham. However, by 1968, Damery and Kitteringham are replaced by Belfast musicians John Wilson on drums and Richard McCracken on bass. Performing extensively in the UK, the group supports both Cream at their Royal Albert Hall farewell concert and the blues supergroup Blind Faith on a tour of North America.

After the break-up of Taste in 1970, Gallagher tours under his own name. He hires former Deep Joy bass player Gerry McAvoy to play on his self-titled debut album, Rory Gallagher. This is the beginning of a twenty-year musical relationship between Gallagher and McAvoy. The 1970s are Gallagher’s most prolific period, producing ten albums in the decade. In 1971 he is voted Melody Maker’s International Top Guitarist of the Year, ahead of Eric Clapton. However, despite a number of his albums reaching the UK Albums Chart, Gallagher does not attain major star status. Though he sells over thirty million albums worldwide, it was his marathon live performances that win him the greatest acclaim.

In the 1980s he continues recording and embarks on a tour of the United States. In addition, he plays with Box of Frogs, a band formed in 1983 by former members of The Yardbirds.

In the later years of his life, Gallagher develops a phobia of flying. To overcome this he receives a prescription for a powerful sedative. This medication, combined with his alcohol use, results in severe liver damage. Despite his condition he continues touring. By his final performance on January 10, 1995 in the Netherlands, he is visibly ill and the remainder of the tour is cancelled. Gallagher is admitted to King’s College Hospital in London in March 1995. His liver is failing and the doctors determine that a liver transplant is the only possible course of action. After 13 weeks in intensive care, his health suddenly worsens when he contracts a Staphylococcal infection. Gallagher dies on June 14, 1995, and is buried in St. Oliver’s Cemetery just outside Ballincollig near Cork City, Ireland.


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The 1981 Irish Hunger Strike Begins

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The 1981 hunger strike begins on March 1, 1981, when Bobby Sands, a former commanding officer of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and prisoner at Long Kesh prison, refuses food. Other prisoners join the hunger strike one at a time at staggered intervals, which they believe will arouse maximum public support and exert maximum pressure on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The movement initially struggles to generate public support for the hunger strike. The Sunday before Sands begins his strike, only 3,500 people march through the streets of west Belfast as compared to 10,000 marchers during a previous hunger strike four months earlier.

Five days into the strike, however, Independent Republican Member of Parliament (MP) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Frank Maguire dies, resulting in a by-election. There is debate among nationalists and republicans regarding who should contest the election, but they ultimately agreed not to split the nationalist vote by contesting the election and Sands stands as an Anti H-Block candidate against Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West. Following a high-profile campaign the election takes place on April 9, and Sands is elected to the British House of Commons with 30,492 votes to West’s 29,046.

Sands’ election victory raises hopes that a settlement can be negotiated, but Thatcher stands firm in refusing to give concessions to the hunger strikers. The world’s media descends on Belfast, and several intermediaries, including Síle de Valera, granddaughter of Éamon de Valera, Pope John Paul II‘s personal envoy John Magee, and European Commission of Human Rights officials, visit Sands in an attempt to negotiate an end to the hunger strike. With Sands close to death, the government’s position remains unchanged, and they do not force medical treatment upon him.

On May 5, Sands dies in the prison hospital on day 66 of his hunger strike, prompting rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 people line the route of his funeral, which is conducted with full IRA military honours. Margaret Thatcher showed no sympathy for his death.

In the two weeks following Sands’ death, three more hunger strikers die – Francis Hughes on May 12, and Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara on May 21. The deaths result in further rioting in Northern Ireland, particularly Derry and Belfast. Following the May 21 deaths, Primate of All Ireland Tomás Ó Fiaich criticises the British government’s handling of the hunger strike. Despite this, Thatcher still refuses to negotiate a settlement.

On July 28, following the deaths of Joe McDonnell (July 8) and Martin Hurson (July 13), the families of some of the hunger strikers attend a meeting with Catholic priest Father Denis Faul. The families express concern at the lack of a settlement and a decision is made to meet with Gerry Adams later that day. At the meeting Father Faul puts pressure on Adams to find a way of ending the strike, and Adams agrees to ask the IRA leadership to order the men to end the hunger strike. The following day Adams holds a meeting with six of the hunger strikers to outline a proposed settlement on offer from the British government should the strike be brought to an end. The strikers reject the settlement, believing that accepting anything less than their original demands will be a betrayal of the sacrifice made by Bobby Sands and the other men who had died.

On July 31, the hunger strike begins to break when the mother of Paddy Quinn insists on medical intervention to save his life. The following day Kevin Lynch dies, followed by Kieran Doherty on August 2, Thomas McElwee on August 8, and Michael Devine on August 20. On September 6, the family of Laurence McKeown becomes the fourth family to intervene and asks for medical treatment to save his life, and Cahal Daly issues a statement calling on republican prisoners to end the hunger strike.

A week later James Prior replaces Humphrey Atkins as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and meets with prisoners in an attempt to end the strike. Liam McCloskey ends his strike on September 26 after his family says they will ask for medical intervention if he becomes unconscious. It also becomes clear that the families of the remaining hunger strikers will also intervene to save their lives. The strike is called off at 3:15 PM on October 3. Three days later Secretary of State Prior announces partial concessions to the prisoners including the right to wear their own clothes at all times. The only one of their original five demands still outstanding is the right not to do prison work. Following sabotage by the prisoners and the Maze Prison escape in 1983, the prison workshops are closed, effectively granting all five of the demands but without any formal recognition of political status from the government.

Over the summer of 1981, ten hunger strikers die. Thirteen others begin refusing food but are taken off hunger strike, either due to medical reasons or after intervention by their families. Many of them still suffer from the effects of the strike, with problems including digestive, visual, physical and neurological disabilities.


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Armed Rocket Launcher Discovered in Co. Tyrone

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Army bomb experts recover a fully armed handheld rocket launcher in County Tyrone on the morning of February 29, 2000. It is found at the side of a house near the rear of Killymeal Army base in Dungannon. The discovery comes just hours after it is learned that large amounts of Semtex high explosive have been stolen from Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) hides.

The weapon is linked to dissident republicans and is of a type not seen in the province before. It is believed to have originated in eastern Europe and has been abandoned by those about to carry out an attack at the rear of the army base. The weapon is similar to one recently seized by the security forces in the Republic of Ireland and linked to the Real IRA.

The rocket launcher is found just after pupils have finished traveling to three local schools. The nearby leisure centre is also closed. Families are removed from their homes on Killymeal Road while the device is investigated.

Superintendent Julie Lindsay says that to abandon such a device in the area is an “act of indescribable recklessness which clearly put the life of people living nearby in danger.” She says officers were able to prevent children from walking by the garden where the device was located as they were going to the leisure centre.

Ken Maginnis, Ulster Unionist Security spokesman and Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, says the discovery of the weapon vindicates his party’s insistence that paramilitaries should disarm. He also says it proves that republicans are “wedded to the past.”

Social Democratic and Labour Party councillor Vincent Currie says the find will bring back bad memories of a previous mortar bomb attack on the army base which devastated many houses in the area. He adds that it is lunacy to leave such a device on a road used by schoolchildren.


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Birth of Irish Revolutionary Leader Seán Mac Diarmada

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Seán Mac Diarmada, Irish political activist and revolutionary leader also known as Seán MacDermott, is born in Corranmore, near Kiltyclogher in County Leitrim on February 28, 1883. He is one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916 and a signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Mac Diarmada is educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. He moves to Dublin in 1908, by which time he already has a long involvement in several Irish separatist and cultural organisations, including Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the Gaelic League. He is soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and is eventually elected secretary.

In 1910, he becomes manager of the radical newspaper Irish Freedom, which he founds along with Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough. He also becomes a national organiser for the IRB and is taken under the wing of veteran Fenian Tom Clarke and the two become nearly inseparable. Shortly afterward, Mac Diarmada is stricken with polio and is forced to walk with a cane.

In November 1913, Mac Diarmada is one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers and continues to work to bring the organisation under IRB control. Mac Diarmada is arrested in Tuam, County Galway, in May 1915 under the Defense of the Realm Act 1914 for giving a speech against enlisting into the British Army.

Following his release in September 1915, Mac Diarmada joins the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which is responsible for planning the rising.

Due to his disability, Mac Diarmada has little participation in the fighting of Easter week but is stationed at the headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), as one of the Provisional Republican Government. Following the surrender on April 29, 1916, he nearly escapes execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners but is eventually identified by Daniel Hoey of G Division. Following a May 9 court-martial, Mac Diarmada, at the age of 33, is executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol. Before his execution, Mac Diarmada writes, “I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!”

In September 1919, Hoey is shot dead by Michael Collins‘s Squad. Likewise, the British Officer who ordered Mac Diarmada to be shot rather than imprisoned, is also killed in Cork on Collins’s order during the Irish War of Independence.

Seán MacDermott Street in Dublin, Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station in Sligo, and Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, the Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim, are named in his honour. Sean MacDermott tower in Ballymun, demolished in 2005, is also named after him. In his hometown of Kiltyclogher a statue inscribed with his final written words is erected in the village centre and his childhood home has become a national monument.

Mac Diarmada will be portrayed by actor Colin Morgan in the 2016 Irish historical biopic drama film, The Rising, written by Kevin McCann and Colin Broderick.


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Gearóid Mór FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, Arrested

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The personal rule of Gearóid Mór FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare, is brought to an end on February 27, 1495, when he is arrested in Dublin by the Lord deputy Sir Edward Poynings and sent to the Tower of London to await trial for treason.

FitzGerald is Ireland’s premier peer and serves as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1477 to 1494 and again from 1496 to 1513. His power is so great that he is called “the uncrowned King of Ireland.”

Gerald FitzGerald is appointed Lord Deputy in 1477 but is replaced by Lord Grey of Codnor on the supposition that an Englishman can do a better job. The Lords of the Pale set up a breakaway Parliament in protest, and Edward IV is forced to re-install FitzGerald. He inherits the title of Earl of Kildare in 1478.

FitzGerald manages to keep his position after the York dynasty in England is toppled and Henry VII becomes king, but FitzGerald blatantly disobeys King Henry on several occasions. He supports the pretender to the throne of England and the Lordship of Ireland, Lambert Simnel. However, Henry needs FitzGerald to rule in Ireland but, at the same time, he cannot control him. Simnel’s attempt to seize the throne ends in disaster at the Battle of Stoke Field and many of his supporters are killed. Henry, now secure on his throne, can afford to be merciful and pardons both Simnel and Kildare. Kildare is shrewd enough not to commit himself to the cause of the later pretender, Perkin Warbeck, despite Henry’s caustic comment that the Irish nobility would crown an ape to secure power for themselves.

FitzGerald presides over a period of near independence from English rule between 1477 and 1494. This independence is brought to an end on February 27, 1495, when his enemies in Ireland seize power and Lord deputy Sir Edward Poynings has him sent to London as a traitor. With FitzGerald’s absence, the way is cleared to end the independence of the Irish Parliament. Poynings directs the Irish Parliament, which is sitting in the town of Drogheda, to pass legislation making it subordinate to the English Parliament in Westminster. This marks the end of medieval Ireland and the commencement of the period of Tudor rule.

FitzGerald suffers another blow when his wife Alison dies soon after his arrest. He is tried in 1496 and uses the trial to convince Henry VII that the ruling factions in Ireland are “false knaves.” Henry immediately appoints him as Lord Deputy of Ireland and allows him to marry Elizabeth St. John, a distant cousin of the King. FitzGerald returns to Ireland in triumph.

He rules Ireland with an iron fist. He suppresses a rebellion in the city of Cork in 1500 by hanging the city’s mayor. He raises up an army against rebels in Connacht in 1504, defeating them at the Battle of Knockdoe. In 1512, after entering O’Neill of Clandeboye’s territory, capturing him and taking the castle of Belfast, FitzGerald proceeds through to utterly ravage the Bissett family’s lordship of the coastal Glens of Antrim.

The following year, while on an expedition against the O’Carrolls, he is mortally wounded while watering his horse in Kilkea. He is conveyed back to Kildare where he dies on or around September 3, 1513.


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The End of the “Border Campaign”

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On February 26, 1962, due to lack of support, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ends what it calls “The Campaign of Resistance to British Occupation,” which is also known as the “Border Campaign.”

The Border Campaign is the first major military undertaking carried out by the IRA since the harsh security measures of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland governments had severely weakened it in the 1940s.

The campaign is launched with simultaneous attacks by approximately 150 IRA members on targets on the Border in the early hours of December 12, 1956. A BBC relay transmitter is bombed in Derry, a courthouse is burned in Magherafelt, a B-Specials post near Newry is burned, and a half-built Army barracks at Enniskillen is blown up. A raid on Gough barracks in Armagh is beaten off after a brief exchange of fire.

On December 14, an IRA column under Seán Garland detonates four bombs outside Lisnaskea Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) station before raking it with gunfire. Further attacks on Derrylin and Roslea RUC barracks on the same day are beaten off.

On the evening of December 30, 1956, the Teeling Column attacks the Derrylin RUC barracks again, killing RUC constable John Scally, the first fatality of the campaign. The new year of 1957 begins with Seán Garland and Dáithí Ó Conaill planning an attack on the Police station at Brookeborough but they assault the wrong building. Two IRA men, Seán South and Fergal O’Hanlon, are killed in the abortive attack. Garland is seriously wounded in the raid. He and the remainder of the group are pursued back over the border by British soldiers.

The year 1957 is the most active year of the IRA’s campaign, with 341 incidents recorded. In November, the IRA suffers its worst loss of life in the period when four of its members die preparing a bomb, which explodes prematurely, in a farmhouse at Edentubber, County Louth. The civilian owner of the house is also killed.

By 1958, the campaign’s initial impetus has largely dissipated with many within the IRA in favour of calling the campaign off. By mid-year, 500 republicans are in gaol or interned. The decline in IRA activity leads the Fianna Fáil government in the South to end internment in March 1959.

Following their release, some of the interned leaders met Seán Cronin in a farmhouse in County Laois and are persuaded to continue the campaign “to keep the flame alive.” The number of incidents falls to just 26 in 1960, with many of these actions consisting of minor acts of sabotage.

The final fatality of the conflict comes in November 1961, when an RUC officer, William Hunter, is killed in a gun battle with the IRA in south County Armagh.

By late 1961, the campaign is over and has cost the lives of eight IRA men, four republican supporters, and six RUC members. In addition, 32 RUC members are wounded. A total of 256 Republicans are interned in Northern Ireland during the campaign and another 150 or so in the Republic.

The Campaign is officially called off on February 26, 1962, with a press release drafted by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and several other persons including members of the Army Council. The statement is released by the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau and signed “J. McGarrity, Secretary.”


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Birth of Edward “Ned” Daly in Limerick

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Edward “Ned” Daly, commandant of Dublin’s 1st battalion during the Easter Rising of 1916, is born on February 25, 1891, at 26 Frederick Street in Limerick.

Daly is the only son among the ten children born to Edward and Catherine Daly (née O’Mara). He is the younger brother of Kathleen Clarke whose husband, Tom Clarke, an active member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Daly’s father, Edward, a Fenian, dies five months before his son’s birth at the age of forty-one. His uncle, John Daly, is a prominent republican who had taken part in the Fenian Rising. It is through John Daly that Clarke meets his future wife.

Daly is educated by the Presentation Sisters at Sexton Street, the Congregation of Christian Brothers at Roxboro Road, and at Leamy’s commercial college. He spends a short time as an apprentice baker in Glasgow before returning to Limerick to work in Spaight’s timber yard. He later moves to Dublin where he eventually takes up a position with a wholesale chemist. He lives in Fairview with Kathleen and Tom Clarke.

Daly joins the membership of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, although the exact date is not known. In November 1913, Daly joins the newly founded Irish Volunteers and soon reaches the rank of captain. He is assiduous in his study of military manuals and the professionalism of his company gains the admiration of senior officers in actions such as the Howth gun-running of 1914. In March 1915, he is promoted to the rank of commandant of the 1st Battalion.

During the Easter Rising of 1916, Daly’s battalion is stationed in the Four Courts and areas to the west and north of the centre of Dublin. His battalion sees the most intense fighting of the rising. He surrenders his battalion on Saturday, April 29 after Patrick Pearse orders the surrender. He is held at Kilmainham Gaol.

Daly is given the same quick sham court-martial at Richmond Barracks as the other leaders of the Rising. In his trial, he claims that he was just following orders. Daly is convicted and is executed by firing squad on May 4, 1916, at the age of 25.

Bray railway station was renamed Bray Daly railway station in his honour in 1966.