There is a difference between the Irish battle for the land in the nineteenth century and the battle for the soil. Soil is what land becomes when it is ideologically constructed as a natal source, that element out of which the Irish originate and to which their past generations have returned. It is a political … Read more
On 2 February 1773, four peers—Lord Townshend, the Earl of Bellamont and their seconds Lords Ancram and Ligonier—assembled in Marylebone Fields on the outskirts of London to determine an affair of honour. The dispute arose from an injury Townshend was deemed to have done Bellamont the previous year when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. … Read more
until recently historians of 1798 regarded the rebellion in Wexford as a spontaneous popular reaction to unwarranted government repression and not part of a larger United Irish conspiracy. Scanty references to the county in the manuscript record and the bitter, apparently localised, character of the Wexford conflict seemed to support this interpretation. Today, inspired by … Read more
by Seamus Heaney Its former green is blue and thin, And its once firm legs sink in and in; Soon it will break down unaware, Soon it will break down unaware. At night when reddest flowers are black Those who once sat thereon come back; Quite a row of them sitting there, Quite a row … Read more
On a cold April morning in 1719 a carriage containing an Irish lady and her maid, escorted by her husband and four companions, left the fortress city of Strasbourg to cross the Rhine. As they departed the governor of the city spoke to them, ‘Adieu mes enfants, you are not crossing the Rhine for nothing, … Read more