Nick Maxwell By Catherine Wright The records of John Tate’s Charity are perhaps one of the more unusual collections in Wicklow County Archives. Founded as a bequest in the will of John Tate in 1787, the charitable trust supported the poor inhabitants of the parish of Rathdrum for over 200 years. Remarkably, the charity is still in … Read more
By Anna Rose Garvey In this issue we explore three films on the IFI Archive Player that celebrate Irish artists. The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, previously the Department of External Affairs, was one of the many state bodies to commission films to be produced on its behalf. The National Film Institute, now … Read more
By Damian Murphy Church architecture in Ireland might be described as in stasis for the first half of the twentieth century, tied to the traditions of an earlier age, occasionally with a contemporary twist, the substitution of concrete block, fibre-cement and steel for costly masonry, slate and timber forming the only obvious connection with the … Read more
By Fiona Fitzsimons In the seventeenth century Ireland, not America, was the land of opportunity. There were more English settlers in Ireland, and more money to be made here, than in the American colonies, which were too distant, with little economic development. The other side of this particular coin was that those dispossessed by conquest … Read more
By Lar Joye By the 1830s over 30% of those serving in the British Army were Irish Catholics. Most joined for the regular pay and meals, but for most of the nineteenth century they were subject to an extreme disciplinary regime that was not seen in other armies. Unlike in the military, for civilians the … Read more