Victorian and modern prison regimes on Spike Island, Co. Cork. By Barra Ó Donnabháin Spike Island is dominated by a Napoleonic-era fortress that was used as a prison from 1847 to 1883, and again from 1985 to 2004. The Spike Island Archaeological Project was established in 2012 to examine the material remains of the Victorian … Read more
EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, collaborates with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to showcase the global Irish diaspora. By Angela Byrne In 2018–19 EPIC is working together with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to celebrate global Irish emigration through the centuries, and to enhance connections with the Irish diaspora today, … Read more
A case of money and influence against the honour of an Irish lady? By Joan Capstick In 1878 a sensational divorce petition came before the Dublin probate and matrimonial court. Sarah Parker, née Ganly, a well-known and unconventional lecturer on women’s rights and spiritualism, sued her husband, Matthew Gibson Parker, a partner in Ganly, Son … Read more
The chevalier brothers-in-law—Thomas O’Gorman, antiquary, genealogist and wine merchant, and Charles-Geneviève d’Éon de Beaumont, transgender diplomat and spy. By Seán O’Halloran The publication of a recently discovered copy of the manuscript of the genealogy of the house of O’Reilly by Clachan Publishing has drawn attention to its compiler, the largely forgotten eighteenth-century antiquary Chevalier Thomas … Read more
Ireland and the history of blasphemy. By David Nash For much of the twentieth century, western governments believed either that blasphemy laws were long-dead fragments of a bygone age or that they simply sat quietly and unnoticed in dust-laden legal volumes away from the public gaze. Events at the end of the twentieth century indicated … Read more