Nick Maxwell By Damian Murphy Newbridge House was built for Charles Cobbe (1686–1765), who came to Ireland in 1717 as chaplain to the then lord lieutenant. He amassed a large estate on the Donabate peninsula by purchasing two adjoining parcels of land, the first measuring 490 acres, the second measuring 510 acres, in June 1736 and July … Read more
By Michael Byrne Research by Angus Mitchell into the life and work of Alice Stopford Green (1847–1929), ‘the passionate historian’ as R.B. McDowell called her, brought Mitchell to Durrow, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, in March 2024 to explore a monastic site that Green had visited in the company of the solicitor, antiquarian and nationalist Francis Joseph … Read more
Sir,—It is easy to see how Pat Poland (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024, ‘When Cork’s lord mayor incurred the wrath of Nazi Germany’) mistook SMS Schleswig Holstein (and thus her sister, Schlesien,pictured on p. 41) for a pocket battleship. She belonged to the Deutschland class of pre-dreadnought battleships launched before the First World War. The Deutschland … Read more
Sir,—The rhyme at the end of your piece on Bernard ‘Barney’ Hughes (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024, On This Day) brought back memories of a chant we had in boarding school in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, Co. Clare, in the early ’50s. The food wasn’t too good and the girls that served it were called Demos’s … Read more
Sir,—In his article ‘The death of Theobald Wolfe Tone—suicide or murder?’ (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024), Paddy Cullivan reveals the circumstances of his personal research on the death of Wolfe Tone, leading to his speculation that Tone could have been murdered rather than committing suicide. He is not the first to so postulate. A much more … Read more