* 1868 – Thomas D ' Arcy McGee, one of the Canadian Fathers of Confederation is assassinated by the Irish, in one of the few Canadian political assassinations, and the only one of a federal politician.

* September 3 – 11 – Siege of Drogheda in Ireland: New Model Army massacre the Irish Catholic Confederation garrison.

* October 2 – 11 – Sack of Wexford in Ireland: New Model Army massacre the Irish Catholic Confederation garrison.

Following the Rebellion of 1641, the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the " Confederation of Kilkenny ", was based in Kilkenny and lasted until the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649.

Following the Rebellion of 1641, the Irish Catholic Confederation, also known as the " Confederation of Kilkenny ", was based in Kilkenny and lasted until the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland in 1649.

Thomas D ' Arcy Etienne Hughes McGee, PC, ( April 13, 1825 – April 7, 1868 ) was an Irish Nationalist, Catholic spokesman, journalist, and a Father of Canadian Confederation.

His support for and his involvement in the Irish Confederation and Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 resulted in a warrant for his arrest.

Born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Londonderry, Ireland he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation.

From 1641 to 1647, he led the fighting against the Irish Catholic Confederation.

In spring 1642 the Irish Catholics formed their own government, the Catholic Confederation, with its capital at Kilkenny, and began to raise their own regular troops, more organized and capable than the irregular militia of the 1641 rebellion.

Isolated in Dublin, with the king desiring to minimize his Irish troops, Ormonde therefore agreed to a " cessation " or ceasefire with the Catholics, which began in September 1643, by which the greater part of Ireland was given up into the hands of the Catholic Confederation ( leaving only districts in the north, the Dublin Pale, round Cork City, and certain smallish garrisons in the possession of Protestant commanders ).

* History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland, edited by J. T. Gilbert ( Dublin, 1882 – 1891 ).

* Irish Confederation

Among those killed were 12 senior businessmen from the Republic of Ireland, including the head of the Confederation of Irish Industry, en route to Brussels for meetings preparatory to Ireland's accession to the European Economic Community.

* April 7 — Father of Confederation Thomas D ' Arcy McGee is assassinated in Ottawa by Irish Fenians.

Among the larger national centers in the world are the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Change to Win Federation in the USA ; the Canadian Labour Congress ; the Trades Union Congress ( TUC ) in Britain ; the Irish Congress of Trade Unions ; the Australian Council of Trade Unions ( ACTU ); the Congress of South African Trade Unions ; the Dutch FNV ; the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish LO ; the German DGB ; the French CGT and CFDT ; the Italian CISL, CGIL and UIL ; the Japan Trade Union Confederation RENGO ; the Argentinian CGT and CTA ; the Brazilian CUT, and so on.

The sentences of O ' Brien and other members of the Irish Confederation were eventually commuted to transportation for life to Van Diemen's Land.

** Gilbert's History of the Irish Confederation, I. xi, 24, 170 – 6, 210 – 17 ;

An Irish Republican in his early years, he would moderate his view in later years and become a passionate advocate of Confederation.

After Confederation, Irish Catholics faced more oppression, probably because of their faith rather than their ethnicity.

The Confederation was essentially an independent state and was a coalition of all shades of Irish Catholic society, both Gaelic and Old English.

In self-defence, Irish Catholics formed their own government, the Catholic Confederation, with its capital at Kilkenny and raised their own armies.

Gaelic Poetry of the post-war era laments lack of unity among Irish Catholics in the Confederation and their constant infighting, which was blamed for their failure to resist Cromwell.

It happened at the St. Patrick's Day party, a big affair for a regiment which had gone into battle for over three-quarters of a century to the strains of an Irish march.

Almost daily something is reported which feeds this Catholic hope in England: statistics of the increasing numbers of converts and Irish Catholic immigrants ; ;

* 1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First Transcontinental Railroad lay 10 miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched.

Historians identify several waves of migration to the United States: one from 1815 – 1860, in which some five million English, Irish, Germanic, Scandinavian, and others from northwestern Europe came to the United States ; one from 1865 – 1890, in which some 10 million immigrants, also mainly from northwestern Europe, settled, and a third from 1890 – 1914, in which 15 million immigrants, mainly from central, eastern, and southern Europe ( many Austrian, Hungarian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Greek, Italian, and Romanian ) settled in the United States.

However, the presence of a vigorous population of Celtic lineage, principally of Irish origin, has supported the creation of other celebrations of beer, often for marketing purposes, such as Saint Patrick's Day ( Día de San Patricio ), patron of Ireland, which is celebrated with abundant libations.

There are five main categories in which potential sources and / or analogues are included: Scandinavian parallels, classical sources, Irish sources and analogues, ecclesiastical sources, and echoes in other Old English texts.

In Ó Duinnín's Irish dictionary ( 1904 ) it is referred to as Céadamh ( ain ) which it explains is short for Céad-shamh ( ain ) meaning " first ( of ) summer ".

Banshees were said to appear for particular Irish families, though which families made it onto this list varied depending on who was telling the story.

Since the Irish War of Independence, the name ' Boxing Day ' is used only by the authorities in Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK.

Among these actions were the Seven Years ' War, the American Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, the First and Second Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the New Zealand land wars, the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the First and Second Boer Wars, the Fenian raids, the Irish War of Independence, its serial interventions into Afghanistan ( which were meant to maintain a friendly buffer state between British India and the Russian Empire ), and the Crimean War ( to keep the Russian Empire at a safe distance by coming to Turkey's aid ).

Sinn Féin won 73 out of 105 seats in Ireland at the general election held in December 1918, and in January 1919 organised themselves as the First Dáil, which then declared an independent Irish Republic.

In the following twenty years, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and other smaller republican groups such as the Irish National Liberation Army ( INLA ) mounted an armed campaign against the British, by which they meant the RUC, the British Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment ( UDR ) of the British Army ( and, according to their critics, the Protestant and unionist establishment ).

The John Lennon album Some Time in New York City features a song entitled " Sunday Bloody Sunday ", inspired by the incident, as well as the song " The Luck of the Irish ", which dealt more with the Irish conflict in general.

Musician Alan Stivell uses a similar dichotomy, between the Gaelic ( Irish / Scottish / Manx ) and the Brythonic ( Breton / Welsh / Cornish ) branches, which differentiate " mostly by the extended range ( sometimes more than two octaves ) of Irish and Scottish melodies and the closed range of Breton and Welsh melodies ( often reduced to a half-octave ), and by the frequent use of the pure pentatonic scale in Gaelic music.

The oldest musical tradition which fits under the label of Celtic fusion originated in the rural American south in the early colonial period and incorporated Scottish, Scots-Irish, Irish, English, and African influences.

The suite which includes a Scottish pipe band, Irish and Welsh harpists, Galician gaitas, Irish uilleann pipes, the bombardes of Brittany, two vocal soloists and a narrator is set against a background of a classical orchestra and a large choir.

Shortly after, in 1869, Irish chemist Thomas Andrews studied the phase transition from a liquid to a gas and coined the term critical point to describe the instant at which a gas and a liquid were indistinguishable as phases, and Dutch physicist Johannes van der Waals supplied the theoretical framework which allowed the prediction of critical behavior based on measurements at much higher temperatures.

The Cuban government supported and still supports the Republican cause, but opposed the attacks which took place on civilian targets by Sinn Féin's military ally, the Provisional Irish Republican Army and of course attacks on civilians by their loyalist enemies such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defence Association.