Nick Maxwell BY AODHÁN CREALEY SEPTEMBER 23/1878 Bernard ‘Barney’ Hughes (70), baker and philanthropist, died. Starting out as a humble apprentice, Hughes opened his first bakery in 1840, and three decades later, with a portfolio that included flour mills, ships to import grain and a string of shops, was Belfast’s leading baker, with the biggest baking and … Read more
By John Gray The Assembly Rooms are to Belfast what Leinster House and the Guildhall are to Dublin and London respectively. No one would dare propose that they should be converted into boutique hotels or allowed to fall into dangerous dereliction. Yet that is precisely what has happened to our Assembly Rooms. Located in Belfast’s … Read more
By Catriona Crowe On 13 June 2024, the Royal Irish Academy hosted a day-long symposium, Archives, Access and Human Rights. The idea originated from the Academy’s Historical Studies Committee and was organised by a working group that I chaired. We set about exploring two issues relating to access to archives: (1) difficulties with access to … Read more
My ‘first’ Olympic Games were in 1972—no, not as a competitor, but as a schoolboy spectator on summer holidays with plenty of time on my hands. Who can forget the USA’s Mark Spitz winning seven gold medals in the pool, Belarusian gymnast Olga Korbut charming the world (but not the judges), the USSR beating the … Read more
Thanks to UCC’s Irish Civil War Fatalities project we now have a definite figure—1,485. But in this discussion, chaired by History Ireland editor Tommy Graham, with John Dorney, Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc, Michael Kennedy and Caitlin White, we find out a lot more—not only who was killed but also when, where, in what circumstances, and how they were commemorated. (Recorded live on Sat 17 Aug ’24 @ the Electric Picnic)