Nick Maxwell BY TONY CANAVAN Irish father of the Suez Canal It is a little-known fact that Francis Rawdon Chesney, born in Annalong, Co. Down, in 1789, formulated the original plan for the Suez Canal. Chesney was an officer in the Royal Artillery, rising to the rank of general. In 1829 he was sent on a mission … Read more
BY AODHÁN CREALEY JULY 11/1792 The Belfast Harp Festival, a three-day event, opened in the Exchange Rooms. Perhaps the first attempt in Ireland to actively rejuvenate Gaelic culture occurred in Presbyterian Belfast, then known as the ‘Athens of the North’, a century before the Irish Literary Revival. Organised by a committee chaired by Dr James … Read more
By Dermot Scott It may seem strange that there should have been a connection in the early nineteenth century between Ramelton, a small provincial town in north-west Ireland, and a Caribbean island. In early 1825 Revd Edward Reid, minister of Ramelton Presbyterian Church, despairing of finding local career opportunities for his numerous family, decided to … Read more
By Tom Sigafoos On 22 September 1884, HMS Wasp, a Banterer-class gunboat of the Royal Navy, ran onto the rocks at the foot of the Tory Island lighthouse, broke apart and sank a few minutes before 4 a.m. Forty-six crewmen and four officers drowned. Five men scrambled up the mast and dropped to safety on … Read more
As we move into the ‘difficult’ bit of the ongoing ‘decade of centenaries’—the Treaty split and the Civil War—Joe Coy (Letters, p. 14) reminds us that ‘the Irish Civil War was a very restrained event by international standards’. There was little retaliation against the losing side, who by late 1924 could avail of an amnesty; … Read more