Nick Maxwell By Jacek J. Jadacki and Eoin Kinsella On 13 November 1946, Minister for Finance Frank Aiken asked the Dáil to sanction an additional grant of £1,000 to the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) to fund temporary professorships—a highly unusual move for what was a learned society, not an academic institution for teaching or research. As Aiken … Read more
BY AODHÁN CREALEY MAY 09/1908 Luke Livingstone Macassey (c. 65), civil engineer and barrister, died. Macassey is remembered as Belfast’s ‘water hero’, the visionary engineer who brought a reliable supply of clean water to a city whose population had risen from 22,000 in 1807 to 270,000 in 1890 and in so doing probably saved more … Read more
Mid-Antrim Museum, Ballymena, until 5 June 2022Larne Museum, 4 July–26 August 2022enquiries@midandeastantrim.gov.uk By Rachel Newell Lizzie Barr was tried for the murder of Adam Maxwell in front of a full court-house in Larne, Co. Antrim. Local interest and a dramatic story meant that many others waited outside, unable to watch the unfolding drama. The victim, … Read more
In this centenary year of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses (see ‘Seen on TV’, pp 52–3, and ‘Museum Eye’, pp 56–7), it is tempting to apply the condescending observation of one of its characters, Englishman Haines—‘It seems history is to blame’—to the present crisis in Ukraine. It might be more accurate to observe that … Read more
The Anglo-Irish Treaty sparked turmoil within the IRA. Some accepted it and joined the ranks of the Provisional Government’s new ‘National Army’; some remained neutral; the majority opposed it, but with the added twist that on the eve of the Civil War there were two anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, not one. Two Army Conventions, … Read more