by Brigitte Anton The Nation was the most popular journal in Ireland in the 1840s. Run by a group closely connected with the Repeal movement who became known as the Young Irelanders, it preached an European-style romantic Irish nationalism. The names of the leaders are familiar: Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, John Blake Dillon, William … Read more
by Ann C. Kavanaugh Few men in the eighteenth-century political world rose more rapidly or spectacularly than John Fitzgibbon. The son of a wealthy convert lawyer, he was barely thirty when he entered Parliament in 1778. Within five years he was appointed Attorney General. In 1789 he attained the highest legal office in Ireland, Lord … Read more
by Niall Ó Ciosáin There was a time when Irish boys were free to choose their own school readers … being sturdy lads, born into a heritage of suffering and persecution, the spirit of resistance burning in their veins, it is not surprising that the reading book they liked best was a cheap little work containing an account of the … Read more
by Ann McVeigh From 31 March 1947 the bargain of a life-time became available to British subjects: they could now emigrate to Australia for just ten pounds — about the equivalent of an adult male’s weekly wage. This exceptional offer became possible after an agreement between the governments of Australia and the United Kingdom resulted … Read more
by Peter Gray The widespread use of Punch cartoons in books and teaching materials on nineteenth century history is hardly surprising: these often striking images are a convenient visual aid for understanding a period in which photography was in its infancy. Yet the use of this graphic record in an unreflective manner is fraught with … Read more