Nick Maxwell The recollections of Ina Heron, fourth child of James Connolly, are preserved in the recently released Military Bureau collection of archives as document WS 919. As a member of Fianna Éireann she was involved in gunrunning in the preparations for the Easter Rising, and during the Rising she took dispatches into areas that men could … Read more
The name William Rooney has long been familiar to historians of Ireland, primarily because of his closeness to Arthur Griffith in the 1890s, yet he remains an elusive figure. Reports of public meetings at this time often end with the enigmatic phrase ‘. . . and William Rooney spoke in Irish’. Given the centrality … Read more
A man who worked alongside me under Douglas Gageby at the Evening Press subsequently wrote of him as being ‘caustic, cynical’ and ‘near scepticism’. Douglas was certainly all of the above. But as I have often observed in nature, the most succulent shellfish generally have the hardest carapaces. Underneath his outer shell he was a … Read more
When the republican campaign against the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and others thought sympathetic to Dublin Castle became more violent and successful in late 1919, the police abandoned hundreds of rural facilities to consolidate shrinking ranks in fewer, fortified stations. The pressure exerted directly on RIC men, their families, friends and those who did business … Read more
TG: First of all could you tell us about the history of the Mansergh family? MM: The Manserghs came to Ireland in the seventeenth century, but didn’t come to their present location in Tipperary until the early eighteenth. Originally, three brothers were brought over during the Cromwellian period by their uncle, a Colonel Daniel Redman. … Read more