Nick Maxwell Sullivan and Cronin first clashed during the Clan’s ‘Dynamite Campaign’ of the mid-1880s. The attacks, for which hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised, were intended to spread fear and cause widespread damage in Britain. High-profile buildings in London were targeted, including Scotland Yard, underground stations, the Tower of London and London Bridge. Alexander Sullivan … Read more
The first official decennial census of the population was taken in 1821, and thereafter every ten years until 1911. It is accepted that the census figure for 1871 is the first return that can be considered as reasonably reliable owing to the compulsory registration of births from 1863 onwards. The accuracy of the 1841 census … Read more
The census for 1841 returned the population at 8,175,124. In parliament, when submitting the census report, Disraeli commented that Ireland was the most densely populated country in Europe and ‘that on arable land the population was denser than that of China’. This was the first occasion when people were asked questions about their educational attainments. … Read more
Since 1968 this sculptural masterpiece has honoured ‘all who perished’ on 7 May 1915. Kerry-born Jerome Connor (1874–1943), after a career in Washington DC, was asked in 1925 to create a design recalling the Lusitania tragedy and promoting a vision of world peace. The memorial’s ‘mourning fishermen’ evoke the grief of the local rescuers, while … Read more
Lord Sidmouth, the British home secretary, acknowledged that Irish troops, many of them Catholic, had ‘turned the scale on the 18th of June at Waterloo’. Nevertheless, within a couple of years it became evident that there would be no reward for Irish loyalty, merely a continuation of existing policies: claims for civil rights would be … Read more