Sometime in the mid-1820s tenants on the Mahon estate at Ahascragh in north County Galway wrote to their landlord, begging him not to evict them: ‘Pray pity your poor people who always did and always will pay their rents well, better drown us than turn us off, for there is no place for us anywhere. … Read more
Landed estate papers allow us to examine the lives of ordinary rural people in times of economic turmoil, and rentals, in particular, enable us to analyse the struggles of those on the margins of society, endeavouring to pay their rent and desperately trying to hold on to the small patches of potato ground on which … Read more
The minute books of municipal corporations, while not quite reflecting the views of the humbler citizen, capture the affairs that trouble those with their hands on the levers of power and an eye on the concerns of their ratepayers. The minute books of the town commissioners of New Ross, Co. Wexford, survive from 1685. They … Read more
The Tholsel building was a community resource and the use of rooms illustrates the political and social climate. While such events as scientific and literary lectures by the YMCA and the letting of the large room to a dancing teacher predominated, there were also more ‘political’ leases. In July 1860 a Tenant Right Reading Room … Read more
Commodore George Anson’s voyage is remembered as a classic tale of endurance and leadership in the face of fearful disasters, but to the British public of 1744 it was the treasure of the Spanish galleon triumphantly paraded through the streets of London that did something to restore national self-esteem battered by the protracted War of … Read more