Nick Maxwell The ghostliness of Robert Emmet is not just about the way he haunts the Irish historical imagination; it is sometimes suggested by the very evidence for his physical existence. It was Emmet himself who set the haunting note, insisting in his famous speech from the dock on a form of memorial absence—that his tombstone remain … Read more
A common observation about Robert Emmet is that he had a death-wish, that he was in thrall to blood sacrifice and the martyrdom complex. That version misunderstands the nature of his ethical dilemma. There is a clear distinction between being a martyr and being a suicide. Suicide you choose: martyrdom has to be inflicted on … Read more
Jenet Sarsfield was probably born in the late 1520s or early 1530s, the daughter of John Sarsfield of Sarfieldstown, Co. Meath. One of her brothers, William, later became an alderman of Dublin. Her first marriage was to Alderman Robert Schillingford, mayor of Dublin in 1534–5, with whom she had one daughter, Katherine, her only child … Read more
Arranged marriage alliances were a very important feature of life in the Pale in early modern Ireland. Rather than springing from emotional attachment, marriage among the gentry and nobility was normally viewed as a contract fostering mutually beneficial alliances between the families involved. A marriage had to be advantageous to both families and was normally … Read more
‘Itinerants first went on the road due to extreme poverty in Ireland. Unlike British or European gypsies the itinerants are the product not of an ancient, highly cultured race with its own folklore and culture but of the immiseration of a section of the ordinary, illiterate peasantry in Ireland . . . Itinerants went and … Read more