Nick Maxwell The Stuart court-in-exile sponsored many schemes to assassinate Oliver Cromwell throughout the 1650s. Most plans envisioned a handful of gunmen ambushing the lord protector and his mounted escorts as they picked their way through narrow streets from Whitehall Palace to Hampton Court, where the protector was wont to spend his weekends, or elsewhere. Éamonn Ó … Read more
The Talbot brothers of Carton, Co. Kildare, carried on a tradition of noisy political activism: their father William had led a deputation sent to James I to bemoan the packing of the 1613 parliament and was thrown in the Tower for his pains. The eldest brother, Sir Robert, had been briefly imprisoned in the summer … Read more
In 1707 the Registry of Deeds was established by act of the Irish parliament, to secure the transfer of land after the Williamite conquest. The Registry’s intended main function was to provide security of tenure for new owners of land in Ireland. The registration or ‘memorialising’ of deeds was on an entirely voluntary basis. Registered … Read more
The map of the siege of Castle Maine was probably drawn shortly after the victory of Munster president Sir John Perrot in August 1572, since it was entered into the state papers in December of that year. The map acknowledges the attacking crown force through a depiction of their camps, their ordnance, their journey across … Read more
The siege of Castle Maine came after nearly fifteen years of conflict between the Desmond Geraldines and the crown, a conflict that fostered increased contact between Irish, Old English and New English peoples in Munster. As all sixteenth-century cartographic activity in Ireland was undertaken by crown officials, the map of the siege of Castle Maine … Read more