Casement’s Black Diaries

Sir,—In a letter concerning when the diaries first came into police hands (HI 24.5, Sept./Oct. 2016), Jeffrey Dudgeon cites Metropolitan Police files distributed at the Royal Irish Academy Casement symposium of 2000. Here two internal police documents refer to the diaries arriving from 50 Ebury Street, London, on Easter Tuesday, 25 April 1916. Dudgeon calls … Read more

April 09

1992 In the Westminster election the Conservatives, under John Major, were returned to power. Joe Hendron (SDLP) ousted Gerry Adams (SF) in West Belfast. 1947 Desmond Fitzgerald, journalist and Cumann na nGaedheal politician who was minister for external affairs (1922–7), died. He was the father of Dr Garret Fitzgerald (1926–2011).

Poems from the prison yard—a poetic correspondence between Charles Wogan and William Tunstall

In 1716 Grant’s publishers of Pater Noster Row, London, circulated Poems of love and gallantry, which contained a composition by Charles Wogan of Rathcoffey, Co. Kildare By Richard Maher During the winter of 1715/16, Charles Wogan awaited trial for treason in one of London’s notorious prisons, Newgate. A little over a year earlier, in the … Read more

‘A mere Irish man, but good Protestant’: Sir Francis Shane, 1540–1614

An assessment of the character and career of an atypical advocate of English rule in late Tudor and early Stuart Ireland By Joseph Mannion Intriguingly described by seventeenth-century churchman and historian Thomas Fuller as ‘a mere [pure] Irish man, but good Protestant’, Sir Francis Shane’s life and career in late Tudor and early Stuart Ireland … Read more

Knighthood conferred

In a victorious encounter with Irish rebels in March 1600, Francis Shane is credited with having slain fourteen of the enemy with his own hand. In recognition of this service, the ‘old and very good servant to the queen’ was knighted by Lord Deputy Mountjoy on 6 April 1600 in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. … Read more