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1695 Jonathan Swift was ordained as a priest in the Church of Ireland, (Irish branch of the Anglican Church).
Swift was one of the greatest writers ever to come from Ireland. He wrote the novel Gulliver’s Travels which was made into a Hollywood film in 2010 starring Jack Black.
Click here to read more about the life and career of Jonathan Swift
Click here for more Jonathan Swift quotes
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1800 On this day, 13 January 1800, Daniel O’Connell gave his first public speech, at a meeting of Catholics held in the Royal Exchange, Dublin opposing Union with England.
Five resolutions were passed against the Union, and O’Connell said: “Let every man who feels with me proclaim, that if the alternative were offered him of Union, or the re-enactment of the Penal Code in all its pristine horrors, that he would prefer without hesitation the latter, as the lesser and more sufferable evil; that he would rather confide in the justice of his brethren the Protestants of Ireland, who have already liberated him, than lay his country at the feet of foreigners.”
O’Connell was known as The Liberator.
Beginning in 1813, he set up mass meetings across Ireland to petition for Catholic emancipation, and eventually in 1829, the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed.
Click here to read more on the history of Ireland
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1931, Mary Clarke, (a Maryknoll nun) was born in New York of Irish parents. She was a missionary in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and worked with refugees in Central America from 1959 till her death.
In 1980, Clarke, and three other missionaries, were beaten, raped, and murdered in El Salvador, by members of a military death squad. This took the total to more than 75,000 people who were killed in El Salvador’s civil war.
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1941 On this day, 13 January 1941, James Joyce died. He is one of Ireland’s most celebrated writers and probably its most influential.
More of James Joyce’s quotes here.
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1964 Happy birthday to former professional golfer Ronan Rafferty, who was born on this day in Newry, Northern Ireland in 1964. Rafferty won seven European tour events in the 1980s and 90s and finished top of the Order of merit, now known as the Race to Dubai, in 1989.
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2001 A copy of the Irish Declaration of Independence is bought for £56,000 by a New York collector on this day in 2001. It is a critical piece of legislation in Irish history, ending centuries of British rule in Ireland.
History of the Easter Rising
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2008On this day in 2008, Aer Lingus ended 60 years of flights between Shannon and Heathrow, London. The Irish airline opted to move the valuable Heathrow service to Belfast.
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