From the mid-nineteenth century, the influence of Cardinal Paul Cullen (1803–78) was ubiquitous within Irish society. He was, as Colin Barr notes in this collection, ‘arguably the most important figure between the death of Daniel O’Connell and the rise of Charles Stewart Parnell’ (p. 414). As Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh succinctly argues, regardless of whether his … Read more
I can remember when the castle in Enniscorthy housed the unofficial Wexford county museum. It had all the attractions and flaws of a volunteer-run museum, with every room packed with exhibits, not always in the best of condition. In 2006 the castle was closed for major renovation. A radical decision was taken to concentrate on … Read more
The Irish Prison Registers 1790–1924, held at the National Archives of Ireland, are one of the greatest untapped resources for tracing Irish ancestors. They contain over 130,000 pages which include nearly three million records of imprisonment providing a wealth of information on each prisoner, including name, address, place of birth, occupation, religion, education, age, physical … Read more
Inghinidhe na hÉireann/Daughters of Ireland was founded by Maud Gonne MacBride in 1900. Ironically, in view of later events, the organisational meeting took place at Easter 1900.The organisation was solely for women and adopted St Brigid as patron. Its agenda was political, social and feminist: it opposed the Irish Parliamentary Party and Home Rule, opting … Read more
Marie Bourke is to be congratulated for writing a comprehensible and detailed account of museums in Ireland, as it is a complicated story. For most of the period under discussion Ireland was not an independent country, so it could not rely on a royal patron to found institutions, as was the case in many European … Read more