Museum eye: The Tenement Experience

The Tenement Experience 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1 www.1913committee.ie by Tony Canavan Henrietta Street, off Bolton Street, is one of the oldest surviving streets in Dublin. Most of the houses were built in the 1740s; its proximity to the King’s Inn meant that it was a prestigious address and attracted many from the legal profession … Read more

Big Jim Larkin: Hero and Wrecker

ITGWU founded The ITGWU marked the birth of the modern Irish labour movement. Less than 10% of Irish workers were unionised at this time, and most of these were in British-based unions. In Dublin especially, many activists felt neglected by British labour and argued for an Irish-based movement. As an NUDL official, Jim had said … Read more

Coercive confinement in Ireland: patients, prisoners and penitents

Coercive confinement in Ireland: patients, prisoners and penitents Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell (Manchester University Press, £65) ISBN 9780719086489   Coercive confinement in Ireland puts the spotlight on the wide range of institutions used by independent Ireland to confine ordinary criminals and those who flouted the moral codes of the period, along with children and … Read more

James Hack Tuke and his schemes for assisted emigration from the west of Ireland

Throughout the nineteenth century the west of Ireland experienced frequent subsistence crises and famines, as the region’s resources were incapable of supporting its large population. During the Great Famine the contributions of private charities such as the Society of Friends played a major role in alleviating the distress in areas such as Letterfrack and the … Read more

Fighting for Lincoln? Irish attitudes to slavery during the American Civil War

The correlation between the growth of the Southern cotton industry in the nineteenth century and the slave population is unmistakable: in 1790 Southern plantations produced only 70,000 bales of raw cotton; by 1860 that had risen to over four million. Similarly, the number of slaves rose from 700,000 to over four million in the same … Read more