On the evening of 18 April 1894 a triumphant Horace Plunkett wrote in his diary: The meeting to inaugurate the lAOS [Irish Agricultural Organisation Society] came off and was brilliantly successful. About 250 present and thoroughly representative of all sides of Irish life. I spoke for 1 1/4 hours & spoke well. The movement is … Read more
The Terry Alt movement of 1828-31 has been one of I the least studied of pre-Famine rural revolts, partly because it was dwarfed by the great anti-tithe agitation with which it temporarily shared the stage at the outset of the 1830s. The name itself is obscure. According to the traveller John Barrow, writing in 1836, … Read more
The uses of literacy, the ability to read and write, are central to the construction of popular culture. Cultural historians have long been engrossed with the reading habits of ordinary people, hoping to find clues to their knowledge, beliefs, expectations and fantasies. Yet the forms and functions of popular writing have been largely ignored. This … Read more
The concentration by historians on the more exciting events of the last two decades of the eighteenth century has contributed to the neglect of Lucas, and where he has been noticed he has frequently been portrayed as an extravagantly antiCatholic bigot. Hence R.R. Madden described him as ‘a bigot of rampant, puritanical, intolerant principles’, while … Read more
Yet it is through participation on these occasions that diverse classes of Protestants have come to express and interpret their political position in a locality, their understanding of specific political issues, and their group identity. At various times the Twelfth of July has been used both by and against the state, by those demanding parliamentary … Read more