Nick Maxwell From the 1770s onwards, as the laws restricting Catholic enlistment were relaxed, increasing numbers of Irishmen joined the British forces. Many enlisted in the European regiments of the East India Company (the British trading organisation that ruled India until 1858). The British needed increasing numbers of soldiers to acquire and maintain distant colonies, and Ireland … Read more
Abigail Francis Woods’ Relationship with Charles Stewart Parnell, Ireland’s “Uncrowned King” Over his seventeen year career (1874-1891), Charles Stewart Parnell achieved more influence than any Irish politician before him. He led the Irish Parliamentary Party, which sought Home Rule for Ireland, and he presided over the Irish National Land League, which battled landlords and their … Read more
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