Nick Maxwell Gaiety Theatre, Verdant Productions, 11 Sept.–25 Oct. 2014 By Donal Fallon In June 1959 the Irish Times noted that, with the success of The Hostage and his book Borstal Boy, the name of Brendan Behan ‘has become almost as well-known through theatrically-minded Europe as those of Shaw and Wilde’. Certainly, the Dubliner captivated crowds, both … Read more
Christina Jessop was born in Dublin in 1878 and lived there until 1908, when she married Jack Wilson and moved with him to Cobh (then Queenstown), Co. Cork. From 1903 to 1908 she collected c. 300 picture postcards sent to her by relatives, friends and acquaintances from places as varied as London, Paris, Alaska, Switzerland … Read more
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