March 3 1998 Two friends, one a Catholic and the other a Protestant, were shot dead when LVF gunmen opened fire in the Railway Bar, Poyntzpass, Co. Armagh. 5 1953 Josef Stalin (74), Soviet dictator, died. 8 1973 The IRA mounted its first large bomb attack on central London at the Old Bailey. Two bombs … Read more
Jimmy Deenihan, Minister for Arts and Culture, has come up with a terrific way to commemorate 1916. He’s going to refurbish the National Gallery. He is to spend €20 million of taxpayers’ money giving the gallery a make-over in time for 2016. Clearly he knows something about the National Gallery’s role in the Easter Rising, … Read more
Hugh O’Flaherty was actually born in Cork in 1898 (his father was in the RIC) but he grew up in Killarney, where his parents had settled down. A noted athlete in his youth, he trained as a missionary priest and embarked on a globe-trotting career that saw him serve the Vatican in a range of … Read more
Following the 1641 uprising, the Confederate wars and the Cromwellian conquest, the English Commonwealth was obliged to redeem debts owed to soldiers and adventurers with land in Ireland seized from Catholic rebels. The adventurers comprised mainly London merchants and English landowners who had put up money at the start of the war to fund the … Read more
‘Christ did not come down from the cross’ was the late Pope John Paul II’s response when questions were raised about his failing health and painfully obvious public suffering in the latter years of his pontificate. So how do we explain the surprise resignation announcement of his successor, Benedict XVI, in contravention of papal tradition … Read more