Nick Maxwell Brendan Smith It was Milo Sweteman’s fate to follow in the footsteps of men more memorable than himself. He came from English settler stock in Kilkenny and was probably still a child in the 1320s when his bishop and future patron, Richard Ledred, ripped local colonial society asunder by instigating the trial of Alice Kytler … Read more
Very few Viking sites outside the major towns have ever been discovered in Ireland, and none outside Dublin has been excavated since the 1940s. And yet historical records such as the Irish annals describe many occupied Viking sites in the ninth- and tenth-century Irish countryside, often referring to them as longphorts. Longphorts and rural … Read more
As topics go, the Spanish Armada has everything: great personalities, grand strategy, warfare on land and sea, diplomatic manoeuvres and conspiracies, propaganda in abundance and religions to die for—all available in a rich range of primary sources (documentary, visual and artefactual) and in a variety of secondary literature and websites. Many of the issues involved, … Read more
The history of Irish sport is a neglected realm. There is no general history of sport in Ireland, and reliable histories of individual sports are few and far between. Yet sport contributes a significant strand to modern Irish identity. The annual Irish invasion of Cheltenham for Gold Cup week, the friendly fervour of Ireland’s soccer … Read more
Brian Mitchell In Ireland as a prelude to a nationwide valuation of land and buildings, the so-called Griffith’s Valuation, the Ordnance Survey was directed to map the whole country at a scale of six inches to one mile. It was originally intended to accompany each map with written topographical descriptions for every … Read more