Nick Maxwell By Patrick Murphy Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Cork had a reputation for political dissent and street protest. Elections were rumbunctious affairs, often descending into physical conflict. The by-election following the death of Charles Stewart Parnell (MP for Cork City) in 1891, for example, saw widespread rioting. The North and South Infirmaries were inundated with … Read more
While Daniel O’Connell’s influence on Belgium, France and Italy is relatively well known, little has been written about his impact on German-speaking lands. By Eda Sagarra When in 1806 Napoleon Buonaparte abolished the 1,000-year-old Holy Roman Empire, in which Catholics had formed a majority of the population and Catholic archbishops commanded extensive wealth and influence … Read more
By Nigel Johnston Of the significant punctuation points in pre-Famine history the cholera epidemic of 1832–3 is a subject deserving of further attention. From contemporary sources we know that the disease broke out with some force in India during 1817 and had spread through Asia, the Baltics and the rest of Europe by the late … Read more
By Brian Smyth A bequest by Francis Andrews, the provost of Trinity College, Dublin, enabled the building of Dunsink Observatory in 1785 and the foundation of the Andrews Professorship in Astronomy. The first Andrews Professor was Revd Henry Ussher, who was appointed in 1784. Ussher died suddenly in 1790, and Revd John Brinkley (1766–1835) was … Read more
By Clodagh Tait When the earls of Tyrconnell and Tyrone and their associates left Lough Swilly in the ‘Flight of the Earls’ in September 1607, some people were left behind. One was a son of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his fourth wife, Catherine Magennis. Conn O’Neill was born in around 1601 or 1602, … Read more