Nick Maxwell In Fenagh, Co. Leitrim, celebrations were held last summer to commemorate a vellum manuscript written there in 1516. By Brendan Scott In 1516 a well-known scribe from Roscommon, Muirgheas Ó Maoilchonaire, was hired by Tadhg O’Roddy, the coarb of Fenagh, to revise and update an earlier version of a manuscript that had supposedly been written … Read more
St Caillín’s shrine was donated to Fenagh by Brian O’Rourke, lord of west Breifne, in 1536. It was held in St Mel’s Cathedral, Longford, from c. 1980 until it was rescued in early January 2010 from the ruins of the cathedral following a disastrous fire there on Christmas Day 2009. It is inextricably linked with … Read more
The Book of Fenagh (RIA MS 23 P 26 [cat. no. 479]) is a vellum manuscript which now comprises 41 folios, some having been lost at an unknown point in its history. The manuscript was carefully written in an elegant script on good-quality vellum. Though relatively modest in length, it was nonetheless a prestige manuscript, … Read more
On the 50th anniversary of a war that was headline news in Ireland. By Kevin O’Sullivan Biafra’s heyday was short-lived. On 30 May 1967 Lt Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu announced the secession of Nigeria’s Eastern Region (of which he was leader) and the creation of an independent republic. Within months his forces were drawn into a … Read more
By Tony Canavan The Know-Nothings Recent events in the United States raise echoes of the Know-Nothing Party, also known as the American Party, which was prominent in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The Know-Nothings strongly opposed immigration and Catholicism. Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine were particular targets of their vitriol. The Know-Nothings feared … Read more