Nick Maxwell AS Kerry prepared the 2006 All Ireland final against Mayo, a Donegal man recalled his first trip to a decider 60 years previously which attracted more than 90,000 fans. John Carlin from The Cross left Donegal for the first time ever to make a daunting train journey from Strabane to Dublin to watch Kerry take … Read more
When Croke Park was opened up to rugby and soccer in 2007 I thought of my grandfather, P.J. O’Loughlin, who died in 1965. Originally a Cork man from Newmarket, he moved to a farm in Tomacork near Carnew, Co. Wicklow around 1929. As well as being a farmer, he was a well known auctioneer in … Read more
I was very fortunate that both my grandmothers were still alive while I was studying twentieth century history in college. My maternal grandmother was born the same year the Great War broke out. Although very young at the time, she could remember several incidents from both the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil … Read more
In November 1973, it fell to me and my crew to respond to an Air Ambulance request to fly a patient by helicopter from Tullamore General Hospital to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, which was at that time the only hospital on this island that could provide the specialist treatment that this badly injured … Read more
While “to the manor born” would no doubt be an exaggeration, my paternal grandmother Ellen Lennon, nee Shanahan, was definitely of bourgeois background in the Deise market town where she was born in 1875. Her father was the customs house officer for Dungarvan and the owner of substantial holdings at the “Lookout” facing the harbour. … Read more