Today In Irish History

April 22: TODAY in Irish History:

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Conor is a Chicago based Motivational Humorous Business Speaker, Author and History buff.

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WATCH: A Short History of Ireland

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1782: Death of Pirate Pirate Anne Bonny

Cork born Anne Bonny was a famous pirate operating in the Caribbean. Bonny became mistress to the pirate Calico Jack Rackham bearing him at least one child. Daniel Defoe wrote what amounted to a biography of Anne Bonny in A General History of the Pirates which you can read at Project Gutenberg. 

He writes of her early life: “Anne Bonny was born at a Town near Cork, in the Kingdom of Ireland, her Father an Attorney at Law, butAnne was not one of his legitimate Issue, which seems to cross an old Proverb, which says, that Bastards have the best Luck.”

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READ: A General History of the Pirate with “With the remarkable Actions and Adventures of the two Female Pyrates Mary Read and Anne Bonny”

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1875: Charles Stewart Parnell MP

Charles Stewart Parnell

Newly elected MP, Charles Stuart Parnell enters House of Commons for first time as MP.

At the time he entered the chamber, Joseph Biggar, the Nationalist MP for Co Cavan, was delivering a lengthy speech to an almost empty House of Commons.  Biggar, a Presbyterian pork butcher and secretly a sworn member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, was filibustering: this was to delay the passage of a Coercion Bill for Ireland.

Many Irish politicians filibustered during this period in an effort to gain attention for the Irish cause.

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1905: Death of Captain William O’Shea.

Captain William O’Shea’s divorce action from wife Kitty O’Shea, naming one time friend  Charles Stuart Parnell as co-respondent signalled the demise of Parnell’s career. O’Shea was MP for Clare and was a captain in the 18th Hussars.

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Captain William O’Shea 1840-1905

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O’Shea’s marriage to wife Kitty had been in name only for many years before he filed for divorce in 1889. No one benefited from the divorce. Parnell’s career was in ruins as Catholic Ireland and Victorian England reacted in horror to the public outing of his relationship. (Much of London society was aware of their love for each other.) Just a few months after the divorce was finalized, a desperately ill Parnell married Kitty O’Shea. He only lived for another four months dying aged 45 in Brighton on October 6, 1891 with his wife beside him.

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1916: Easter Rising Delayed

The Easter Rising planned for April 22 (Easter Saturday) is postponed for two days. The capture of Roger Casement and the scuttling of the Aud which was transporting an estimated 20,000 rifles were some of the reasons for the delay.

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Want to learn more about Ireland? See these images and more in the acclaimed For the Love of Being Irish

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This history is written by Irish author, business keynote speaker and award winning humorist IrishmanSpeaks – Conor Cunneen. If you spot any inaccuracies or wish to make a comment, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the comment button.

Visit Conor’s YouTube channel IrishmanSpeaks to Laugh and Learn.

Tags: Best Irish Gift, Creative Irish Gift, Unique Irish Gifts, Irish Books, Irish Authors, Today in Irish History TODAY IN IRISH HISTORY (published by IrishmanSpeaks)

April 21: TODAY in Irish History:

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Roger Casement

Snippets of Irish History by Conor Cunneen IrishmanSpeaks 

Conor is a Chicago based Motivational Humorous Business Speaker, Author and History buff.

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WATCH: A Short History of Ireland

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1875: Charles Stuart Parnell Election

Charles Stuart Parnell is elected to the House of Commons, as a Home Rule League Member of Parliament (MP) for County Meath. The protestant Parnell was a hugely popular and effective leader of the Irish land league and Home Rule movement. Parnell encouraged obstructionism (basically filibustering) in Parliament and encouraged Irish peasants to stop paying rent to landlords. Parnell’s activities prompted Prime Minister Gladstone to introduce the first Home Rule bill in 1886. The bill failed to pass.

Parnell became one of the tragic characters of Irish politics following an ongoing affair affair with Katherine (Kitty) O’Shea, wife of one of Parnell’s supporters. The 1889 divorce action and resulting scandal destroyed Parnell’s reputation and effectively forced him out of politics. He died in 1891.

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1916: Roger Casement Capture

A German ship, the Aud is discovered off the coast of Kerry with a reported shipment of up to 20,000 rifles for Irish rebels who were planning the Easter Rising of 1916 (three days later.) The crew scuttled the ship and spent the rest of the war in captivity. On the same day, Roger Casement is captured by British forces after he lands in the same area from a German U-boat. Casement, who at one stage was a prominent English diplomat and British consul would be charged with treason and executed.

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1994: Paul Hill, Guildford Four

Paul Hill of Guildford Four

Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four is cleared of IRA murder charges in a separate case to the Guildford charges which saw him spend fifteen years in jail. During brutal interrogation re the Guildford bombings, Hill confessed to the murder of ex-British soldier Brian Shaw in Belfast in 1974 in an unrelated incident. Following his exoneration, Hill said “‘I want to lead a normal life now. I’ve been in limbo for a long time. I didn’t wait for 17 years to be told I was innocent of this – I always knew I was innocent of this.”

Shaw’s family do not accept Hill’s innocence on this charge. The murdered man’s wife said “Naturally we are disappointed with the verdict. ‘We have to live with this decision, but we do not have to agree with it. Brian Shaw was the real innocent victim in this case.’

Hill married Mary Courtney Kennedy (daughter of Robert Kennedy) in 1993. They separated in 2006.

For more on Paul Hill

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Want to learn more about Ireland? See these images and more in the acclaimed For the Love of Being Irish

___________________________________

This history is written by Irish author, business keynote speaker and award winning humorist IrishmanSpeaks – Conor Cunneen. If you spot any inaccuracies or wish to make a comment, please don’t hesitate to contact us via the comment button.

Visit Conor’s YouTube channel IrishmanSpeaks to Laugh and Learn.

Tags: Best Irish Gift, Creative Irish Gift, Unique Irish Gifts, Irish Books, Irish Authors, Today in Irish History TODAY IN IRISH HISTORY (published by IrishmanSpeaks)