Nick Maxwell On 21 September 1601 a Spanish fleet of twenty-eight sail occupied the Irish port at Kinsale with about 3,300 men, disembarking in a badly victualled and furnished condition under the maestro de campo general, Don Juan del Águila. The nightmare spectre that had haunted the Elizabethan state ever since 1585 had come to pass. Earlier … Read more
It is not clear when Basque mariners first began fishing off the coast of Ireland but the ordinances of 1553 of the confraternity of fishermen of the Spanish Basque port of Bermeo indicate that men from there were already fishing in Irish waters by then. Furthermore, in a lawsuit over the fishing voyage of the … Read more
Most of us have heard, at one time or another, that Ireland was peopled in remote times by settlers from Spain. These settlers, the ancestors of the Irish people of today, are often referred to as ‘Milesians’. Archaeologists have found no convincing evidence for any such ancient migration, but the persistence of the idea that … Read more
Sir,—Iam researching the history of commercial brewing in the North-West ofIreland. In particular I am looking for information on Martin JosephMadden Jr, a native of Sligo who resided in Bray, County Wicklow, fromthe 1880s onwards, and Kathleen V. Davys, another native of Sligo whoresided in Bangor, County Down, up to the 1920s. Martin JosephMadden Jr, … Read more
Sir,—Weare developing a film documentary about the life and work of the greatIrish Victorian sculptor John Henry Foley. Dubliners will be familiarwith his statues of Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith and Henry Grattan atthe front of Trinity College. According to the critic Brian Fallon, ‘Noart works are woven more densely and intimately into the fabric ofnational … Read more