Day: July 18, 2025

by Louis Cullen The Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoire is a powerful composition; the theme of Arthur O’Leary refusing to sell his horse in accordance with the terms of the celebrated penal law which required a Catholic to sell a horse if offered £5 by a magistrate, and later losing his life in a confrontation in … Read more

by Raymond Gillespie Between 1580 and 1640 about 370,000 Englishmen and 100,000 Scots left home and family to make their fortune outside their native land. Rising population and demand for increasingly expensive land along with diminishing opportunities in the church or the law for younger sons made self-imposed exile an inescapable fate for many. Some, … Read more