Events for April 02

April 2, 1902

Premiere of Yeats 'Cathleen ni Houlihan' starring Maud Gonne

Cathleen ni Houlihan is a one-act play written by William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1902. It was first performed on 2 April of that year and first published in the October number of Samhain. Lady Gregory wrote the naturalistic peasant dialogue of the Gillane family, while Yeats wrote Cathleen Ni Houlihan’s dialogue.

April 2, 1914

Cumann na mBan, Irish womens republican movement founded

Cumann na mBan, (the ‘League of Women’), was an Irish republican women’s paramilitary organisation formed on 2 April 1914 as an auxilliary of the Irish Volunteers (IV). Although it was otherwise an independent organization, its executive was subordinate to that of the IV.

April 2, 1593

Marischal College, second University in Aberdeen, founded.

Marischal College is a large granite building on Broad Street in the centre of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, and since 2011 has acted as the headquarters of Aberdeen City Council. However, the building was constructed for and is on long-term lease from the University of Aberdeen, which still uses parts of the building to store its museum collections.

April 2, 1970

Several days of rioting following Easter rising commemorations in Ireland end on this date

Following an Orange Order march, intense riots erupted on the Springfield Road in Belfast. Violence lasted for three days, and the British Army used CS gas for the first time in large quantities. About 38 soldiers and dozens of civilians were injured.