Around 130 people attended this conference, including about twenty of the Davitt family. The conference was addressed by eighteen speakers, from England, Scotland, the United States and Ireland, North and South. Following an official opening by the president of the College, Pauric Travers, the keynote address, ‘Michael Davitt in historical perspective’, was delivered by Professor … Read more
‘Well, I never knew how good I was ’till now’, Dominick Beirne was quoted as saying on the evening of 21 August 1879. Beirne and at least fourteen of his friends and relations had just witnessed what they reported as an apparition of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist by the … Read more
This conference, convened by Gillian O’Brien and Finola O’Kane Crimmins from UCD, brought together 37 international speakers from a broad interdisciplinary background—history, literature, art and architecture—to explore the subject of Georgian Dublin. Garret FitzGerald opened the proceedings and reflected on the necessity of preserving the Georgian landscape of Dublin and on the battle for Hume … Read more
John Toland (1670-1722) was probably born near Clonmany in Inishowen, County Donegal, into a Catholic Irish-speaking environment. As a child he courted infamy by arguing about theology with the local priest. At fifteen he converted to Anglicanism and a few years later became a Dissenter while studying in Glasgow. A restless maverick, Toland was both … Read more
The history of Irish sport is a neglected realm. There is no general history of sport in Ireland, and reliable histories of individual sports are few and far between. Yet sport contributes a significant strand to modern Irish identity. The annual Irish invasion of Cheltenham for Gold Cup week, the friendly fervour of Ireland’s soccer … Read more