March (Márta) 1 - March is Irish History Month
1703 - Birth of Philip Tisdall, politician andd Attorney General noted for his lavish hospitality
1726 - Abraham Shackleton, a Quaker, opens a school at Ballitore, Co. Kildare. Edmund Burke will later be a pupil
1794 - Statutes of Dublin University amended tto allow Catholics to take degrees
1810 - Georgetown College was chartered in Wasshington, D.C., making it the first Roman Catholic institution of higher learning established in the United States. Georgetown University began with the vision of John Carroll, an American-born (1st generation from Ireland), European-educated Jesuit priest who returned to the United States in 1773 with the goal of securing the future of American Catholicism through education -- in particular, through the establishment of a preeminent Catholic place of higher learning.
For more on Georgetown
For more on John Carroll
1828 - James Fleming Fagan (of Irish descent) born in Kentucky, Major General (Confederate Army), died in 1893
1848 - Augustus St. Guadens, Irish sculptor of Dublin's Parnell monument, is born. He also designed the American Double Eagle coin.
1854 - SS City of Glasgow leaves Liverpool harrbor & is never seen again
The City of Glasgow carried thousands of Irish emigrants to America in the four years she operated on the north Atlantic and was to all accounts a popular ship. But after leaving Liverpool on March 1, 1854 she was never seen again. To this day what really happened to her is unknown. In those days there was no way to communicate between Europe and America (the trans-Atlantic cable was not laid until 1866). So the only way for the ship's owners to know if a ship had arrived was to receive a report from another ship. In early April, over five weeks after she sailed, there was no word of her.
1905 - Birth of Nano Reid, painter, in Drogheda, Co. Louth
1934 - Primo Carnera beats Tommy Loughran in 15 for heavyweight boxing title
Supremely talented Light Heavyweight king Loughran fought 12 world champions in his storied career. Gave up title to campaign as a heavyweight, and spotted Primo Carnera 86 pounds in his losing effort for the Heavyweight crown.
1949 - Birth in Donegal of guitarist, Rory Gallagher
1953 - Birth of Martin O’Neill, international soccer star and manager of Celtic, Aston Villa.
1965 - Roger Casement's body is re-interred in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin
1976 - "Special Category" status is removed from political prisoners in Northern Ireland
1981 - Bobby Sands, IRA member, begins 65-day hunger strike in Maze Prison (he dies). (Sands bio) (Bobby Sands’ diary)
1998 - President McAleese defends her decisionn to hold a reception to mark Orange Day celebrations in the face of mounting criticism from unionists
1998 - DUP councillor Nigel Dodds calls for seecurity to be stepped up following an INLA bomb attack at a school used by Catholic and Protestant children
1999 - The heroic action of a pilot and the crrew of a Channel Express cargo plane avert a major tragedy as they land the plane safely at Shannon after two propellers on their ageing aircraft disintegrated, disabling two of their four engines and leaving a deep hole in the aircraft's fuselage
Feast Days:
St. Marnock of Annandale, Bishop (Marnanus, Marnan, Marnoc)
Died c. 625. An Irish monk under St. Columba (f.d. June 9) at Iona, and afterwards a missionary bishop, who died at Annandale, and was much venerated in the neighbourhood of the Scottish border. He has given his name to Kilmarnock in Scotland. He has a second feast day on October 25 (Benedictines, Encyclopaedia).
St. Albinus (Aubin) of Angers, Bishop
Born in Vannes, Brittany, France; died c. 554. Here is another saint of whose childhood we know next to nothing, except that he was of Irish and English descent and lived in Brittany. He comes out of the unknown and enters, as it were, another unknown--for after renouncing the fortune of his father, he enters the cloistered life, giving himself to prayer and silence and solitude.
At the age of 35, he was abbot of Tincillac Monastery near Angers. The stories that come down to us show one thing quite clearly: He is a man who detests anything that is adulterated, whether it be the Rule of St. Benedict, the sacraments of the Christian faith, or the human body. We might say of him that his mouth never lost its taste for spring water.
Albinus did not die a martyr, rather his body simply wore out. The abbey of Saint-Aubin in Angers was erected in his memory. Saint-Aubin de Moeslain (Haute Marne) is even today a popular place of pilgrimage (Benedictines, Encyclopaedia).
In art, St. Albinus is portrayed as a blind bishop. He is venerated at Angers, Brittany, Haute Marne, and is invoked for children in danger of death (Roeder).