seamus dubhghaill

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

Tag Archives: Protestantism


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Pope Gregory XIII Commissions the Gregorian Calendar

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Pope Gregory XIII commissions the new Gregorian calendar on February 24, 1582, replacing the Julian calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 45BCE.

The reason for the reform is that the average length of the year in the Julian calendar is too long. It treats each year as 365 days, 6 hours in length, whereas calculations show that the actual mean length of a year is 365 days, 5 hours, and 49 minutes. As a result, the date of the actual vernal equinox, over the course of 13 centuries, has slowly slipped to March 10, while the calculation of the date of Easter still follows the traditional date of March 21.

These calculations are verified by the observations of mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius, and the new calendar is instituted when Gregory decrees on February 24, 1582, that the day after Thursday, October 4, 1582 will not be Friday, October 5, but rather Friday, October 15, 1582. The new calendar duly replaces the Julian calendar and has since come into universal use. Because of Gregory’s involvement, the reformed Julian calendar comes to be known as the Gregorian calendar.

The switchover is bitterly opposed by much of the populace, who fear it is an attempt by landlords to cheat them out of a week and a half of rent. However, the Catholic countries of Spain, Portugal, Poland, and Italy comply almost immediately. France, some states of the Dutch Republic, and various Catholic states in Germany and Switzerland follow suit within a year or two, and Hungary follows in 1587.

More than a century passes before Protestant Europe accepts the new calendar. Denmark, the remaining states of the Dutch Republic, and the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland adopt the Gregorian calendar in 1700–1701. Ireland and Great Britain, along with its American colonies, reform in 1752, where Wednesday, September 2, 1752 is immediately followed by Thursday, September 14, 1752. They are joined by the last Protestant holdout, Sweden, on March 1, 1753.

The Gregorian calendar is not accepted in eastern Christendom for several hundred years, and then only as the civil calendar. The Gregorian Calendar is instituted in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Romania accepts it in 1919 and is followed by Turkey in 1923. The last Orthodox country to accept the calendar is Greece, also in 1923.


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Hugh O’Brien – First Irish Mayor of Boston

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Hugh O’Brien is sworn in as Boston’s 31st mayor and first Irish mayor on January 5, 1885, marking the beginning of a new era in Boston politics.

Born in Ireland on July 13, 1827, O’Brien moves with his family to Boston when he is five years old, well before the potato famine sends waves of impoverished Irish men and women to Boston. He spends seven years in the Boston public schools and is apprenticed to a printer at the age of 12.

Working first for the newspaper Boston Courier and then for a Boston printer, O’Brien excels at the printing business, making foreman when he is only fifteen. He starts his own publication, Shipping and Commercial List, and is soon successful enough to become a respected member of the Boston business elite.

O’Brien’s business success draws the attention of Patrick Maguire, publisher of The Republic newspaper and the unofficial head of Irish politics in Boston. He orchestrates O’Brien’s election to the city’s Board of Aldermen.

Boston has long been controlled by native-born Protestants, generally called “Yankees,” most of whom have a stereotypical view of Irish immigrants as poor, ignorant, undisciplined, and under the thumb of the Catholic Church. But the Irish-born population of Boston is exploding, making up over 40% of the city’s population by 1885.

By 1883, Maguire decides that the time has come for Boston to elect an Irish-born mayor. He devises a two-part strategy. O’Brien will be the public face of the campaign, an able public official who criticizes the previous administration for increasing taxes. O’Brien’s pledge to reduce the tax rate without cutting city services appeals to the Yankee tradition of frugality. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Maguire develops a system of Irish ward bosses who visit each household in the neighborhood and make sure that every eligible Irishman votes for O’Brien. O’Brien sweeps 15 of Boston’s 25 wards and, on December 10, 1884, becomes the first Irish Catholic to be elected Mayor of Boston.

O’Brien surprises the opposition by governing the city in a conservative and honest way during his four terms in office. He cuts tax rates as promised. He also widens streets, establishes the commission that hires Frederick Law Olmsted to design the Emerald Necklace park system, and builds the new Boston Public Library in Copley Square. He disarms his critics by enlisting Yankee and Republican businessmen to serve on the committees overseeing these projects.

Hugh O’Brien dies on August 1, 1895, and is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts.