Nick Maxwell A tower house is a fortified medieval residence of stone, usually four or more stories in height. Like most of the surviving monuments of our medieval past, the majority of Irish tower houses are in poor condition, with collapsed walls and ivy shrouded exteriors reflecting centuries of neglect. Yet these ruins, the remnants of a … Read more
Anthony P. Quinn A credit union is a mutual society, owned and run by the members on a democratic co-operative basis to provide a savings and loan service. Co-operation, a basic human process, was expressed in the traditional Irish meitheal by which neighbours helped one another with the harvest. The origins of modern formal co-operation … Read more
Irishmen do not need to have indicated to them the hardship of being governed by those alien to them in temperament, ideals and traditions. An Englishmen they say can never understand the needs of a country like Ireland. How strange then that all men should be considered gifted with the wonderful power of sympathetic interest … Read more
Philomena Connolly On 11 July 1332, Sir William Bermingham was taken from Dublin Castle where he had been imprisoned, and was hanged by order of Anthony Lucy, the justiciar. The Dublin annalist was horrified at this deed: ‘Alas, alas,’ he lamented, ‘who can contain their tears when they remember his death?’ The shock of the … Read more
Charlie Doherty Most people if asked about St Patrick would mention one or more of the following: snakes, slavery, Armagh, Slemish, Saul, Downpatrick, Croaghpatrick and, of course, the shamrock. How many would mention the saint’s own writings—his Confession or his Letter to the Soldiers of Coroticus? We have only one fixed point for fifth-century Irish … Read more