On This Day 1603: The end in Munster. English attacked the MacCarthys in Carbery. Leading English routed but a cavalry charge forced the Irish back. Owen MacEgan, bishop of Ross led the counter charge with beads and breviary in hand but was shot down, breaking Irish morale #nineyearswar

Madeleine French Mullen was a Malta born, Irish revolutionary, political & humanitarian activist. She helped workers during the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out, joined the ICA & fought in the 1916 Rising as a Lieutenant in the Royal College of Surgeons.
#NollaignamBan

Cumann na mBan reminding the Irish people that 'two usurping governments are functioning in our county' - opposing both partition parliaments imposed by Westminster to replace the All-Ireland Dáil #NollaignamBan

Cumann na mBan.
A nation without the support of its women lacks the backbone needed for revolution. #NollaignamBan

Today is Nollaig na mBan (Women's Christmas) celebrated in Ireland. A day of rest for the matriarch, it's marked by wives, mothers and lady friends gathering for a party. They can expect gifts from the children and a day of husbands tending the household work.

‘This island will gradually yield to the ruthlessness of "progress" that decaying age is moving always nearer How much of Ireland was formerly like this and how much of Ireland is today Anglicised and brutalised?"

JM. Synge, Aran Islands (1907)

800 year old carving: Adoration of the Magi on the west gable of St. Declan's Cathedral in Ardmore, Co. Waterford.

#OnThisDay 1661 The dead body of Oliver Cromwell, whose actions in Ireland are infamous, was dragged through the streets & three years after his death ritually executed again in London. His head was placed on a 6 metre tall spike above Westminster Hall.

Done on behalf of English Royalists it must be added.

This day 47 years ago – 30 January 1972 - the British Army shot 28 people, 14 of whom died, in Derry city, after an anti-internment protest march.

All were male, aged between 17 and 59.

Irish minister Patrick Hillery said, “From now on my aim is to get Britain out of Ireland.”
All chimerical of course.

The design of the St Brigid's cross has similarities with the swastika, an ancient motif used on Celtic carvings. The central cross pattern also resembles the lozenge shapes found on Irish megalithic stones, a fertility symbol. https://bit.ly/2GBO7Lf

The name Brigid comes from Brigantes ('the people of the goddess Brigid') - a Celtic tribe that inhabited Iron Age Britain. Later the Brigantes settled Leinster, suggesting these peoples introduced Brigid as a chief deity to Ireland.

The sacred fire Solas Bhride ('the Light of Brigid') re-lit in 1993 by the Brigidine Sisters, Co Kildare. Each St. Brigid's Day the town hosts a week-long celebration in honour of their saint founder.

An Irish legend tells of how St Brigid aided the Virgin Mary in presenting Jesus at the temple by distracting the crowd with a headdress bearing many lighted candles. In gratitude, Mary decreed that a feast day honouring Brigid should take place a day before Candlemas.

In medieval Ireland winter and spring comprised the quieter half of the year.

During the cold months war-making ceased and the people took to housing and feeding the warrior-bands. Great effort was made to ensure a varied diet by hunting, fishing and preserving.

"Marriages in early Ireland tended to be concentrated between Twelfth Night (5 Jan) and Shrove Tuesday.."

The links between the Imbolc spring festival, birth and marriage -