Nick Maxwell A newly discovered manuscript throws a vivid, uncensored and revealing light on an Ulster Presbyterian community and an otherwise obscure eighteenth-century cultural world. By Andrew Carpenter Although several women living in the southern provinces of eighteenth-century Ireland published poetry in English, remarkably little of the verse written by women from Ulster during this period has … Read more
Olivia Elder (1735–80) was the daughter of Revd John Elder (1692–1779), one of the earliest and most prominent of the New Light Presbyterians, minister to the congregation at Aghadowey and author of two of the tracts establishing the New Light Presbyterians. Olivia never married but acted as her father’s housekeeper. For most of her adult … Read more
By Lar Joye The ‘Brown Bess’ musket was the one used by the British Army from 1720 to 1850. There is no agreement on the origin of the name—maybe from the colour, perhaps a corruption of the German word for gun (buche) or simply a soldier’s nickname. It was not a very effective weapon, firing … Read more
In Ireland, early aeronautical ambitions had centred on Richard Crosbie (1755–1824). Crosbie’s aeronautical ambition had always been to reach England; although he never managed to do so, he did at least become the first man to fly in Ireland (and the first Irishman to fly) when he ascended from Dublin’s Ranelagh Gardens on 19 January … Read more
The first balloon crossing of the Irish Sea in July 1817. By Mark Davies ‘I am just come from the clouds; I should now wish to visit the deep.’ This was the bravado request of twenty-year-old Windham Sadler, only hours after becoming the first man ever to make an aerial crossing of the Irish Sea, … Read more