Nick Maxwell A FIRST WORLD WAR SOLDIER’S READING LIST By Laurence Fenton On 14 September 1914, James O’Donnell, an eighteen-year-old soldier from Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, was injured while digging a trench near the small French town of Verneuil during the mayhem of the Battle of the Aisne. A German shell had landed close by, shattering the leg … Read more
When It Was Dark (1903) was the ‘most original and daring novel of the century’, its publishers claimed, the grandiosity of the statement undermined by the fact that the century was only three years old at the time. Nevertheless, it certainly caused a sensation when it came out—despite (or possibly because of) the pretty clear … Read more
Although largely forgotten today, Hallie Erminie Rives was one of the most popular writers in early twentieth-century America, catapulted to literary fame by A Furnace of Earth in 1900. She was also a true American ‘blue blood’ whose family loomed large in the history of Virginia (the colony in which Hearts Courageous was primarily set), … Read more
THE INTERSECTION OF CHRISTMAS SENTIMENT, NATIONAL IDENTITY AND AESTHETIC TASTE IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY IRELAND By Teresa Breathnach Just before Christmas 1916 Countess Markievicz realised that, with the advent of world war, the festive cards that had been made in Germany had simply been replaced by those made in England. She immediately set about designing a … Read more
Echlin Street, Dublin 8 By Ciarán Wallace Echlin Buildings, off James’ Street, is Dublin’s first purpose-built block of flats, opened in March 1878. The location of these homes for workers reflected the industrial character of a district that included breweries, distilleries and a major wharf on the Grand Canal. The Buildings were commissioned by the … Read more