Don’t let Tara become ‘another Four Courts’

LAST Friday (June 30), was the 84th anniversary of a terrible event in Irish history — the destruction of the Public Records Office by Irregulars led by Rory O’Connor.

My grandfather, Séamus Ó Ceallaigh, together with his fellow early Irish historian Eoin MacNeill, the former leader of the Volunteers, went together under fire to the Four Courts to try to persuade O’Connor to desist.

Their entreaties were in vain and two lorry-loads of gelignite exploded there.