Irish kings or chiefs (rí, lords): a white wand, the “rod of kingship” rather than a crown, was the symbol of legitimate authority. Inaugurated outdoors under sacred trees or stones, by ollamhs (poets/seers).

14th of April 1920: British soldiers & RIC in Miltown Malbay Clare, fire into a crowd of civilians celebrating the release of Republican hunger strikers from Mountjoy. Three men are killed & several more were wounded including a 14 year old boy & a teenage girl.

#OnThisDay 1916 Thomas Ashe & his Volunteers from the Fingal Battalion attack the RIC barracks in Ashbourne. After a five hour firefight the police finally surrendered. Ashe lost 2 men while the RIC lost 8. Ashe took roughly 70 RIC men prisoner.

Irish people are known for being informal and relaxed. This might stem from times when Irish kings were elected from a Derbfine (4 generations of relatives) within a kingdom of only several thousand people. Thus a ruler could not afford to upset others with haughty behaviour.

The 3,000 year old stone fort of Dún Aonghasa, Inishmore, The Aran Islands. Once called 'the most magnificent monument in Europe'.

The Bronze Age fort of Dún Aonghasa in the limestone studded landscape of Aran, County Galway, Ireland.

March is the month which feast of St Enda of Aran, the 'Patriarch of Irish monasticism' takes place. A warrior-king of Oriel in Ulster, he was converted by his sister, St Fanchea. In 484 AD he established the first Irish monastery on Inishmore. Most of the great Irish saints are connected to Aran Islands.

Teaghlach Éinne, St Enda's House, Inis Mór.

The ancient burial place of the Irish saints on the Aran Islands. St Enda is reputedly buried under the altar, alongside many other early saints.

Dún Dúchathair ('Black Fort') - the most foreboding of Aran's Bronze Age stone forts, West coast of Ireland.

''The whole history of Ireland is a record of betrayals by politicians and statesmen.''

James Connolly

"And now this is ‘an inheritance’ –
Upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked
In the long ago, yet willable forward
Again and again and again"

- Séamus Heaney

‘The history of a nation is not in parliaments and battlefields but in what the people say to each other on fair-days and high days, and in how they farm, and quarrel, and go on pilgrimage.’
- W.B. Yeats

#OnThisDay 1798 United Irishmen rebels ambush & kill 70-80 British militia at Three Rocks in Wexford taking 20 prisoner & 2 howitzers. They then take Wexford Town. The garrison in Wexford town withdraw to Duncannon, looting & pillaging on their way.
One instance of a series of rebellions nationwide in 1798.

To the ancient Irish there was a link between manual or verbal ability & supernatural power. The skill of the poet, smith & seer was considered to have magical potential. From the oldest text: 'the people of skill were gods [for them]' i.e. the Tuatha Dé, masters of all arts.

In medieval Ireland the category of people who exercised skill & knowledge were known as áes dána, or nemed ('sacral ones'). This included filid (poets) who were the equal of kings & clerics. The 'base nemed' were men of lesser skill: physicians, judges, smiths & harpists.