Nick Maxwell Over the course of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, nearly 300 ‘Big Houses’ (those belonging to aristocrats with in excess of 2,000 acres), 20% of a total of c. 1,500, were burned to the ground. Why? AuthorTerence Dooley, Professor of History at Maynooth University and Director of the Centre for the Study of … Read more
By Peter Crooks, Zoë Reid and Ciarán Wallace In this, the third of three articles counting down to the centenary of the Four Courts fire in June 2022, the authors examine the aftermath of the blaze and the work of Beyond 2022 as an all-island and international partnership to reconstruct what was lost 100 years … Read more
By Seán Bernard Newman BACKGROUND Until the summer of 1920, Ulster avoided the worst of the revolutionary violence. It was quiet, although far from peaceful, and the conflict in the South seemed a safe distance away across the provincial border. By the end of the revolutionary period, however, Belfast stood out as the bloodiest district … Read more
By Fiona Fitzsimons A UK census was taken on 19 June 1921, weeks before the Truce ending the Irish War of Independence and six months before the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Political unrest meant that the planned census was not taken in Ireland, although pre-printed forms for the 1921 census of Ireland survive in Kew. In 1921 … Read more
THE OWNER A Thomas Campion is recorded on the 1901 census at Seskin, Co. Kilkenny, as an unmarried agricultural labourer, along with his older and younger unmarried sisters, occupying a four-room stone or brick house (2nd class), with a slate or tile roof and four outbuildings. They were Roman Catholic, could all read and write, … Read more