Nick Maxwell Nestled in the woods on the eastern boundary of the Castletown estate, Celbridge, Co. Kildare, the eighteenth-century gate lodge informally known as the ‘Batty Langley Lodge’ is one of the finest features of this renowned demesne. It was built for Lady Louisa Conolly (1743–1821), wife of Thomas Conolly MP (1738–1803), and was one of the … Read more
Kilcorban Dominican friary is located in east Galway in the diocese of Clonfert. The friary was home to Ireland’s only community of the Dominican Third Order Regular. It appears to have been established as a result of the influence of the Dominican First Order friars of Portumna, less than 10km away. Thomas de Burgo, bishop … Read more
Kilcorban (also rendered Kyllcarbayn, Kilcarbain or Kilcorbain) was named after an early medieval saint, Corban or Corbran of Cluana, who died in AD 732. Little is known of the saint and, while there is no physical or documentary evidence for a monastery in this period other than the toponym Kilcorban, a local tradition suggests that … Read more
British director Ken Loach is well known for his cinematic accounts of fraught historical moments, dealing with the Spanish and Irish civil wars respectively in Land and freedom (1995) and The wind that shakes the barley (2006). In his latest outing he has turned his gaze to Ireland in the 1930s, a period when post-revolutionary … Read more
1981 Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald announced a ‘constitutional crusade’ to remove ‘sectarian elements’ in the law and constitution of the Republic. 1980 The first hunger strike in the Maze Prison began when seven prisoners refused to take food in support of their demand to wear their own clothing. In mid-December they were joined by 23 additional … Read more