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February 17

Published in On this Day listing

1820 Dan Donnelly, renowned Dublin-born pugilist whose victories included one over the English champion over eleven rounds—when a round lasted until one or other was thrown or knocked to the ground—at ‘Donnelly’s Hollow’ in the Curragh, at present marked by a small obelisk, died.
1980 The Derrynaflan hoard (eighth and ninth centuries), consisting of a chalice, a paten, a paten stand, a strainer and a large bowl, was discovered by a father and son using metal-detectors on the ancient monastic site of Derrynaflan, Co. Tipperary.
1867 ‘When we look down into the fathomless depths of the Fenian conspiracy we must acknowledge that eternity is not long enough nor hell hot enough for such miscreants’—sermon by David Moriarty, bishop of Kerry (1814–77).

On this Day

1871 John Millington Synge, key figure in the Irish Literary Revival, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre and playwright, notably of The Playboy of the Western World, born in Newtown Villas, Rathfarnham, Co. Dublin.
1947 The expression ‘Cold War’, a war waged through proxies, was coined by the US statesman and millionaire financier Bernard Baruch.
1917 After twelve years in exile, the leading Russian Bolshevik, Vladimir Illyich Lenin (47), arrived in St Petersburg after a week-long journey from Zurich in a sealed train.
1862 Sir Thomas Wyse, politician and diplomat and major player in the struggle for Catholic Emancipation, died in Athens.
1660 Sir Hans Sloane, physician and collector, whose natural history collection formed the foundation of the British Museum, was born at Killyleagh Castle, Co. Down.