F-YEAH HISTORY

A Traditional Irish Halloween Mask from the Early 20th Century

Source: Museum of Country Life, Ireland.

Easter Rising Pamphlet 1916 pamphlet by John Redmond, MP, concerning the Easter Rising in Ireland.

Credit to Miami University Libraries - Digital Collections.

Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland under Elizabeth I, sets out from Dublin Castle. Detail from a plate in The Image of Irelande, by John Derrick (London, 1581)

Cover of a programme for Sinbad the Sailor, the pantomime in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre at Christmas 1892 Source: National Library of Ireland on The Commons

Photographer Thomas J. Wynne (1838-1893) outside of his photograph studio on Main Street in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland, 1872

The entrance to Newgrange, a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, 1905 Newgrange (Irish: Sí an Bhrú) is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, about one kilometre north of the River Boyne. It was built about 3200 BC, during the Neolithic period, which makes it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. Newgrange is a large circular mound with a stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound has a retaining wall at the front and is ringed by 'kerbstones' engraved with artwork. There is no agreement about what the site was used for, but it has been speculated that it had religious significance – it is aligned with the rising sun and its light floods the chamber on the winter solstice. It is the most famous monument within the Neolithic Brú na Bóinne complex, alongside the similar passage tomb mounds of Knowth and Dowth, and as such is a part of the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage Site. Newgrange also shares many similarities with other Neolithic constructions in Western Europe, such as Maeshowe in Orkney, Scotland and the Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales.

End of the Irish Invasion ; — or — the Destruction of the French Armada, caricature by James Gillray French warships, labeled Le Révolutionaire, L'Egalité and The Revolutionary Jolly Boat, being tossed about during a storm blown up by Pitt, Dundas, Grenville and Windham, whose heads appear from the clouds. Charles Fox is the figurehead on Le Révolutionaire which is floundering with broken mast. The Revolutionary Jolly Boat is being swamped, throwing Sheridan, Hall, Erskine, M.A. Taylor and Thelwall overboard.

The Expédition d'Irlande ("Expedition to Ireland") was an unsuccessful attempt by the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars to assist the outlawed Society of United Irishmen, a popular rebel Irish republican group, in their planned rebellion against British rule. The French intended to land a large expeditionary force in Ireland during the winter of 1796–1797 which would join with the United Irishmen and drive the British out of Ireland. The French anticipated that this would be a major blow to British morale, prestige and military effectiveness, and was also intended to possibly be the first stage of an eventual invasion of Britain itself. To this end, the French Directory gathered a force of approximately 15,000 soldiers at Brest under General Lazare Hoche during late 1796, in readiness for a major landing at Bantry Bay in December.

National Shell Factory at Parkgate Street, Dublin, during the First World War

Tom Crean with sled dog puppies, 7 February 1915 Tom Crean, nicknamed the "Irish Giant" (20 July 1877 - 27 July 1938) was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer from County Kerry. He was a member of three of the four major British expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott's 1911–13 Terra Nova Expedition, which saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his polar party. During this expedition Crean's 35 statute miles (56 km) solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal.

"Gog and Magog giving Paddy a Lift Out of the Mire." From Punch magazine, 1849. Here the giants stand for London, said to be assisting Ireland after the famine by purchasing land to improve trade Gog and Magog (Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج‎ Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear in the Old Testament, and in numerous subsequent references in other works, notably the Book of Revelation, as well as in the scripture of Islam, the Qur'an. They are sometimes individuals, sometimes peoples, and sometimes geographic regions. Their context can be either genealogical (as Magog in Genesis 10:2) or eschatological and apocalyptic, as in the Book of Ezekiel and Revelation. The passages from Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention due to their prophetic descriptions of conflicts said to occur near the "end times".

Photograph of the British original of the Anglo-Irish Treaty – 6 December 1921 The Anglo-Irish Treaty (Irish: An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence. It provided for the establishment within a year of an Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations (the first use by the UK Government of this term, rather than "British Empire", in an official document). It also provided Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State, which it exercised.

Blue Shirt Riot in O'Connell Street, Dublin, 1933 The Blue Shirts were an Irish fascist movement founded by the former Irish president William Cosgrave (1880-1965) to 'combat the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Communism and defend free speech'.

Dublin c. 1831 (from the Phoenix Park)

An 1849 depiction of Bridget O'Donnell and her two children during the famine This image depicts Bridget O'Donnel. Her story is briefly this:-- '. . .we were put out last November; we owed some rent. I was at this time lying in fever. . . they commenced knocking down the house, and had half of it knocked down when two neighbours, women, Nell Spellesley and Kate How, carried me out. . . I was carried into a cabin, and lay there for eight days, when I had the creature (the child) born dead. I lay for three weeks after that. The whole of my family got the fever, and one boy thirteen years old died with want and with hunger while we were lying sick.'

In Ireland, the Great Famine was a period of mass starvation, disease and emigration between 1845 and 1852. It is also known, mostly outside Ireland, as the Irish Potato Famine. In the Irish language it is called an Gorta Mór, meaning "the Great Hunger") or an Drochshaol (meaning "the bad life").

During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland, causing the island's population to fall by between 20% and 25%. The proximate cause of famine was a potato disease commonly known as potato blight. Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland—where one-third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food—was exacerbated by a host of political, ethnic, religious, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate.

Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone Hugh O'Neill (c. 1550 – 20 July 1616), was the earl of Tyrone (known as the Great Earl) and was later created The Ó Néill. O'Neill's career was played out against the background of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, and he is best known for leading the resistance during the Nine Years War, the strongest threat to English authority in Ireland since the revolt of Silken Thomas.

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington Francis Skeffington (23 December 1878 – 26 April 1916) from Bailieborough, County Cavan, was an Irish suffragist, pacifist and writer. He was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St. John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Conor Cruise O'Brien's father, Frank O'Brien. He married Hanna Sheehy in 1903, whose own surname he adopted as part of his name, resulting in his being known as Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, and sometimes referred to as "Skeffy".

Invite to the launch of the Titanic, 1911