History remembers it as a footnote. Those of us standing on the floor of Brixton Academy on 11 December 1991 remember something else. For one remarkable night, the worlds of The Clash and The Pogues collided, revealing a London far more connected, complicated and communal than politics ever admitted.

By T.S. Flynn

I was…

LUAIN -- On October 19, 1751, Charles Edward (Jennings) Kilmaine, general in the French army, was born at Saul's Court, Dublin. His father was a physician from County Galway. Though the family name was Jennings, Charles became known as Kilmaine in France after the area of…

Long before partition hardened Northern Ireland's political divisions, Belfast witnessed a remarkable experiment in working-class solidarity. During the dock strike of 1907, Protestant and Catholic workers united in a common struggle against powerful employers, while unrest spread into the ranks of the police…

DOMHNAIGH -- On October 11, 1860, all the militia units of New York City were ordered to turn out to march in honor of the visiting Prince of Wales, the 19-year-old heir to the English throne.

(Left: Courtesy of the late Lt.…

The Irish Land War is usually remembered as a struggle between landlords and tenants, led by Charles Stewart Parnell and fought in the fields and villages of rural Ireland. Yet its methods tell a different story. Michael Davitt, the son of evicted Mayo tenants who came of age in the cotton mills of Lancashire, brought the techniques of…

By Westport House - Alabaster Statue of Grace O'Malley (Granuaile) (1530-1603) by Joseph Mischyshyn, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122557070

Image Caption

Grace O'Malley (Gráinne Mhaol), the sixteenth-century Irish chieftain, trader and naval commander whose life continues to inspire new generations.…

SATHAIRN -- On Sept. 27, 1847, Civil War veteran and middleweight champion 'Professor' Mike Donovan was born in Chicago to Irish-born parents. The first of many memorable events in Donovan's life came when he fought for the Union Army, serving in Sherman's army in its march through Georgia. After the war,…

fLUAIN -- On August 31, 1767, Henry Joy McCracken, leader of the United Irish rising in Antrim, was born in Belfast. McCracken was running a cotton factory by the age of 22. He and Thomas Russell organized the first Society of United Irishmen in Belfast in 1791. He was imprisoned for 13…

LUAIN -- On August 24, 1968, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marched from Coalisland to Dungannon in County Tyrone…

LUAIN -- On August 17, 1778, Bernardo O'Higgins, the father of Chilean independence, was born in Chile. Bernardo's mother was…

SATHAIRN -- In the early morning hours of August 2, 1943, a small American torpedo boat was moving just west of New Georgia in the Solomon Islands. In command was a young …

DOMHNAIGH -- On July 26, 1739, George Clinton, soldier, first governor of New York, and vice president of the United States was born in Little Britain, N.Y., of Irish Protestant parents. Clinton served in his father's New York state militia unit during the French and Indian War before being elected to the…

DOMHNAIGH -- On July 19, 1798, after months of begging and cajoling by Theobald Wolfe Tone, the French…

DOMHNAIGH -- On July 12, 1691, the Jacobite army in Ireland fought the forces of William of Orange at the Battle of Aughrim. Although the battle of the Boyne fought a year earlier is seen by many today as decisive, the Jacobite…

DOMHNAIGH -- On July 5, 1812, Frederick Maning (left), who would become beloved in New Zealand by its native Māori people, was born in Johnville, County Dublin. Maning immigrated to Australia with his father in 1824. In 1833 he moved on to New Zealand on his own when few Europeans…

DOMHNAIGH -- On June 14, 1690, William of Orange, King of Holland, and recently declared King of England, arrived in Belfast with his fleet. The Catholic King James II had been tolerated by the Protestant nobility for a time because all his possible heirs were…

LUAIN -- On June 8, 1853, John Mitchel escaped from Australia, eventually making it to the United States. Mitchel, a member of the Young Ireland Party, was born in Comnish, Co. Derry. John was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He obtained a…

LUAIN -- On June 1, 1866, the Fenian Brotherhoodundertook the most famous action of its history: the invasion of Canada. Mexican…

LUAIN -- On May 25, 1798, in Co. Wicklow, as the British authorities began to receive news of people rising up in several parts of the island, anxious loyalist militia units committed two massacres of men they suspected of being rebels. In Dunlavin, 28 or more…

DOMHNAIGH to LUAIN -- On May 17-18, 1918, the British government began arresting all the leaders of Sinn Fein that it could round-up. Britain desperately wanted to…