Nick Maxwell Thomas Westropp Bennett is one of those largely forgotten earnest, elder statesmen who were the political and administrative midwives to the infant Irish Free State. The son of a British army captain, he was the first Catholic in an old Limerick family of Protestant gentry; an ancestor sat in Grattan’s parliament. Active in elected local … Read more
The pious old man clutches his pilgrim staff as he crests a hill overlooking Lough Gill. He turns to view his kingdom laid out before him. It is Tiernan O’Rourke (Ua Ruairc), prince of Breffni (Bréifne), on his way to make pilgrimage to the holy island of St Patrick at Lough Derg. His sweeping gaze … Read more
Here’s a question for bibliophiles! Who wrote The war of the civilisations? No, I am not talking about Samuel Huntingdon’s 1996 tome, The clash of civilisations and the remaking of the world order. The book to which I refer comes from a radically different era. Its full title is The war of the civilisations: being … Read more
Bray Town Hall, built in Tudor Revival style at the top of Main Street, was commissioned by the eleventh earl of Meath’s son and heir, Reginald Brabazon, Lord Ardee, who had lived abroad and who seems to have been anxious to show interest in the town where his father was lord of the manor and … Read more
On the night of 16 August 1920 ‘wild scenes were witnessed’ in Temple-more as the North-amptonshire Regiment carried out reprisals following the killing of RIC District Inspector Wilson by the IRA. According to a local press report, ‘soldiers joined in the outbreak . . . volleys were fired, houses attacked, shops looted, the town hall … Read more