Nick Maxwell Dev and the Banner 1917–1926 On 10 July 1917 Eamon de Valera won a by-election in East Clare, one of a series of victories for Sinn Féin in the run-up to their landslide victory in the general election of December 1918. He would continue to represent the county in the Dáil until his election to … Read more
BY AODHÁN CREALEY JANUARY 20/1894 Robert Halpin (57), master mariner, died. Going to sea at the age of ten, Halpin served his apprenticeship on a coal boat, and afterwards joined a barque sailing in the North Atlantic, reaching the rank of third mate by the age of seventeen. After nine years under sail, he transferred … Read more
By Marie Bourke ‘A maestra of genres and renowned woman artist of the Renaissance’ is how the curator, Dr Aoife Brady, describes Lavinia Fontana. ‘The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon offers a rare glimpse of what this pioneering figure in the history of art could do.’ The origins of the painting … Read more
By John Gibney Two days before the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London on 6 December 1921, Arthur Griffith wrote to Eamon de Valera in Dublin, telling him that David Lloyd George and the other British negotiators had told him that, if he and his colleagues were to sign it, ‘they would hand us … Read more
Exactly a century ago, on 7 January 1922, after nine days of acrimonious debate, Dáil Éireann narrowly approved, by a vote of 64 to 57, the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Interestingly, that vote did not legally ‘ratify’ it; that had to await a vote, boycotted by anti-Treaty TDs, of the previously moribund ‘Parliament of Southern Ireland’ on … Read more