History Ireland

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ST JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL, LIMERICK

By Jacqui Hayes St Joseph’s Hospital was founded as Limerick District Lunatic Asylum in 1827 with accommodation for 150 patients, a number almost immediately exceeded. The minute books in the […]

FLAG OF SOUTH AFRICA FROM THE 1932 TAILTEANN GAMES

By Siobhán Doyle According to legend, the Aonach Tailteann (Tailteann Games) was first staged in County Meath several centuries BC as a large gathering to celebrate the life of Queen […]

UKRAINE—A BRIEF HISTORY

By Hiram Morgan It is not surprising that East–West relations are now convulsed by the war waged against Ukraine, as that country’s name means frontier or borderland. It is a […]

FROM BALLYCROY TO BUCHENWALD—THE DOUBLE LIFE OF PATRICK SWEENEY

How doubts about his identity led to an Irishman’s internment in France and his deportation to one of the Nazis’ most notorious concentration camps. By Isadore Ryan On 28 July […]

THE VIRTUAL RECORD TREASURY OF IRELAND: A CENTURY OF RECOVERY FROM THE 1922 FOUR COURTS BLAZE—AND BEYOND

By Peter Crooks, Zoë Reid and Ciarán Wallace In this, the third of three articles counting down to the centenary of the Four Courts fire in June 2022, the authors […]

April 27

1822 Ulysses Simpson Grant, general in the Union army and 18th president of the United States (1869–77), born in Ohio.
1521 Ferdinand Magellan (c. 40), Portuguese navigator, was killed by natives on the island of Mactan in the Philippines during the first circumnavigation of the Earth.
1920 The IRA attacked the RIC station at Ballylanders, Co. Limerick. The Black and Tans terrorised Limerick city the following day.
1967 The Abortion Act, making abortion legal up to 28 weeks’ gestation, came into effect in the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland.
1953 Maud Gonne MacBride, revolutionary and iconic figure in nationalist mythology, died.
1916 Outside Hulluch, north of Loos in northern France, the 16th (Irish) Division suffered one of the heaviest gas attacks of the First World War; 538 men died and a further 1,590 were injured.
1923 Eamon de Valera offered terms for negotiation to end the Civil War, which were rejected by the Free State government.
1953 Maud Gonne (86), iconic figure in Irish nationalism, died.

ST JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL, LIMERICK

FLAG OF SOUTH AFRICA FROM THE 1932 TAILTEANN GAMES

UKRAINE—A BRIEF HISTORY

FROM BALLYCROY TO BUCHENWALD—THE DOUBLE LIFE OF PATRICK SWEENEY

THE VIRTUAL RECORD TREASURY OF IRELAND: A CENTURY OF RECOVERY FROM THE 1922 FOUR COURTS BLAZE—AND BEYOND

Personal Histories

On this Day

April 27