Nick Maxwell Huge population growth in British cities after the industrial revolution brought with it an increase in the number of public houses. By the turn of the twentieth century British newspapers were heaving with reports of the rise in alcohol-related crime, pauperism and insanity. In Ireland the social problems caused by drunkenness spurred proposed amendments to … Read more
During the eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth, England ruled Ireland through a class of landlords distinguished from their Catholic fellow countrymen not only by economic position but also by religion. As capitalist development threatened the first, they came to broaden the second by appealing to all Protestants regardless of their views, recruiting first … Read more
Instituted in 1856 to reward members of the British army and navy for ‘single acts of valour’, the Victoria Cross has been awarded to over 200 Irishmen, born both here and overseas, representing about 16% of the 1,356 medals awarded. The dates of the awards to Irish soldiers span 90 years, from the Crimean War … Read more
Two summers ago in Derry, a portrait of the eighteenth-century earl-bishop Frederick Hervey was stolen from St Columb’s Cathedral and placed on a bonfire in the Bogside, to be consumed along with Rangers football paraphernalia and other artefacts of Protestant culture and identity. As the BBC news correspondent pointed out at the time, Hervey was … Read more
Over the past ten years, as a result of increased immigration from various parts of the world, Ireland has become a more visibly multicultural society. These migration patterns are not random. The establishment of the Irish Muslim community, for example, is partly rooted in Ireland’s shared colonial history with India and South Africa under the … Read more