Nick Maxwell In the rush to arms, many politicians and soldiers believed that the war would be ‘over by Christmas’. With the failure of the German Schlieffen plan to defeat the allies, however, the armies on the Western Front quickly became bogged down, and all sides took to the trenches. When Christmas 1914 actually arrived, the event … Read more
The first decade of the twentieth century saw the establishment of women’s suffrage societies in nearly every major town and city in the British Isles. These organisations shared the same objective but utilised vastly different means to achieve it. The movement was split between two broad camps: militant and non-militant. The London-based National Union of … Read more
The state reformatory was one of three institutions provided for by the 1898 act and the only one to be managed by the prison system. Certified reformatories were established and operated privately, perhaps by a local authority or religious order. Inmates could be detained there by the courts and those deemed to be progressing well … Read more
On 14 November 1901 Elvina T. appeared before the Dublin City sessions charged with child neglect and with being a habitual drunkard. The previous month, a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCC) inspector had visited her family home at Kevin Street to find the children ‘miserably clad’. Some weeks later he found … Read more
Vaughan correctly pointed to the importance of the fact that John George’s father, George Adair, had married into the powerful and influential Trench family. In particular, his interaction with the ruthless land agent William Steuart Trench is thought to have influenced Adair’s outlook on how to deal with recalcitrant tenants. No attention, however, has been … Read more