Nick Maxwell Born to British parents in Calais in 1821, Ford Madox Brown was educated at art schools in Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Paris before moving to London in 1846. In 1848 he received a letter from a young student at the Royal Academy asking whether he would consent to tutor him. Brown agreed and thus came … Read more
The First World War correspondence of Michael Bourke, Garvey’s Lane, Limerick. By Tadhg Moloney During the First World War, letters allowed soldiers in training or at the front to keep in touch with home. Michael Bourke of Garvey’s Lane, Limerick, wrote at least 36 letters to his sister Mary over the nine months from 2 … Read more
Westtown, Co. Waterford By Brendan Wright Tragedy at sea in the early nineteenth century brought about a defining feature of the County Waterford coastline. On the morning of 30 January 1816, HMS Sea Horse, carrying members of the 2nd Battalion, 59th (2nd Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot, hit a storm as she sailed from Ramsgate … Read more
By Joe Culley Clair McDonald, The eighteenth-century landscape of Stradbally Hall, Co. Laois (Four Courts Press, €8.95 pb, 70pp, ISBN 9781846826467) Terence Dooley, Castle Hyde: the changing fortunes of an Irish country house (Four Courts Press,€8.95 pb, 64pp, ISBN 9781846826436) Susan Marie Martin, The shawlies: Cork’s women street traders and the ‘merchant city’, 1901–50 (Four … Read more
The decisive stance taken by the Catholic bishop of Cork, Francis Moylan, towards the threat of French invasion in December 1796. By Gordon Kennedy On Christmas Day 1796, while Theobald Wolfe Tone was still anxiously pacing the deck of a French warship, desperately hoping that Lazare Hoche’s subordinates would actually come to a decision and … Read more