Nick Maxwell Parnell appears to have been happier with Katharine O’Shea than Abby was with Samuel Abbott, but he and Katharine were constantly trying to deceive her husband, Captain William O’Shea, about the nature of their relationship. In 1881 O’Shea challenged Parnell to a duel and in 1886 he pressured Parnell to obtain a seat in the … Read more
A little-noticed map made 200 years ago provides the first detailed representation of the parkland around one of Ireland’s most elaborate ‘big houses’, the recently restored mansion at Ballyfin, Co. Laois. To be found in a volume of richly coloured estate maps now preserved in the Delany Archive in Carlow College, a map (below) depicting … Read more
What was the composition of the first supreme council elected in June 1642 prior to the first formal meeting of the Association of Confederate Catholics of Ireland the following October, a list that until now has remained elusive? The outbreak of rebellion in Ulster in October 1641 initiated a period of political turmoil that spread … Read more
Richard Butler, Viscount Mountgarret, Leinster Nicholas Preston, Viscount Gormanston, Leinster Nicholas Netterville, Viscount Netterville, Leinster William Fleming, baron of Slane, Leinster Barnaby Fitzpatrick, baron of Upper Ossory, Leinster David Rothe, bishop of Ossory, Leinster Sir Edward Butler, Leinster Sir Richard Barnwell, Leinster Piers Butler, Leinster Philip Hore, Leinster Richard Bellings, Leinster Christopher Nugent, Leinster Robert … Read more
Recent scholarly interest in Confederate Ireland has created a vastly clearer picture of a traditionally murky period in Irish history. Admittedly, some five decades passed before Micheál Ó Siochrú built upon the pioneering research of Donál Cregan in the 1940s, but both historians acknowledged that the destruction of official records prevented an exhaustive study of … Read more