Historical Happenings

One hundred years ago on August 19, a force was born that changed Irish history.  It is doubtful that the Easter Rising of 1916 could have taken place without the organizational ability of the Irish Citizen Army which sprang from the labor union movement in Dublin and the effects of the Great Dublin Labor Lockout.  Yet, that movement was very slow to organize in Ireland compared to the remarkable impact that the Irish had on organizing labor earlier in America which will be presented in Part Two.  The labor union movement was slow to grow in Ireland, partly because there was little industry in … [Read more...] about The Irish In Labor

On July 1, 1867, three nations mourned the loss of one of their heros  Ireland, Australia and the United States.  The heros name was Thomas Francis Meagher and he was born on August 3, 1823.  His grandfather's successful trading business made it easy for his father to own a small hotel and pub in Waterford, where he was educated at a Jesuit boarding school.  Later at a Jesuit college in England he earned a reputation as an effective orator. He returned to Ireland in 1843, just two years before a blight hit the potato causing a great starvation among his people.  Watching his countrymen starve … [Read more...] about Thomas Francis Meagher

There are many Irish radio programs today which feature bits of our history, news and musical heritage, but which one was the first?  For the answer, we must return to the early days of broadcast communication.  In 1895, Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated that rapid variations of electric current could be projected from point-to-point as telegraph waves.  Most credit him with inventing wireless communication, but few know that his mother, Annie Jameson, daughter of Andrew Jameson of Daphne Castle in County Wexford of the Jameson Irish Whisky family, was the one who encouraged and funded the young … [Read more...] about The First Radio Broadcast

Thirty-two years ago, a protest by Irish republican prisoners ended in one of the most courageous and tragic events in Irish history.  It began 9 years earlier in July 1972, when Political Prisoner Status was introduced after a hunger strike by 40 IRA prisoners led by Billy McKee.  It meant being treated as prisoners of war and not having to wear prison uniforms nor do prison work.  In 1976, the Brits decided that disagreeing with the government was a crime and political dissidents were criminals just as thieves, rapists and murderers.  They ended Political Prisoner Status; prisoner’s clothes … [Read more...] about The Hunger Strike of 1981

One of the least known today, yet the most influential Irish Revolutionaries of her time, was a lady named Maud Gonne. She was born on Dec. 20, 1865, in England, to a British army colonel of Irish descent and an Irish mother.  Her mother died when Maud was only six and she and her sister were sent to France to be educated.  In 1882, her father was posted to Dublin Castle and he brought his two daughters with him and Maud assumed the role of hostess of the household.  She grew into a stunningly beautiful woman - six feet tall, pretty face, hour-glass figure and long, wavy, red hair; she was … [Read more...] about Maude Gonne McBride