BLACK ’47, WHICH COMMENCES SHOOTING SHORTLY, IS NOT THE FIRST FAMINE-THEMED FILM TO BE ENVISAGED By Bryce Evans This year marks the 80th anniversary of the publication of Liam O’Flaherty’s novel Famine, set during Ireland’s Great Hunger (1845–51). O’Flaherty’s literary contemporary Seán O’Faoláin called Famine ‘tremendous’, ‘biblical’, containing ‘a compression of emotion only to be … Read more
THE INTERSECTION OF CHRISTMAS SENTIMENT, NATIONAL IDENTITY AND AESTHETIC TASTE IN EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY IRELAND By Teresa Breathnach Just before Christmas 1916 Countess Markievicz realised that, with the advent of world war, the festive cards that had been made in Germany had simply been replaced by those made in England. She immediately set about designing a … Read more
RECOVERING THE ‘HIDDEN HISTORY’ OF AN ÉMIGRÉ COMMUNITY By Michael Brabazon Petit, Casinan, Visard, Douepurty, Petin, Arry, Tallon—the French names stood out in sharp relief against the familiar Nolans, O’Connors, Mellets and Gallaghers. The more I looked, the more I found: Royan, Callary, Pordon, Byenn, Caffel, Mossily. I was looking for my great-great-great-grandmother, Leuce Teat, … Read more
THE AUTHOR AND DERIVATION OF THE MOST WIDELY KNOWN SONG ABOUT IRELAND’S MOST MONUMENTAL CATASTROPHE HAVE REMAINED OBSCURE ALMOST SINCE ITS COMPOSITION By Dan Milner The first verse of the ballad ‘Old Skibbereen’ tells us that it was composed outside Ireland (‘Then why did you abandon it, the reason to me tell?’), and America stands … Read more