Bringing it all back home: O’Connell, Douglass and Barack Obama

On 20 September 1845, The Nation advertised: ‘Frederick Douglas [sic], recently a slave in the United States, intends to deliver another lecture in the Music-Hall, Lower-Abbey street, on Tuesday evening next, 23rd instant, at eight o’clock. Doors to be open at half-past seven o’clock. Admission, by tickets, to be had at the door. Promenade—fourpence. Gallery—twopence.’ … Read more

The Orange Order

The Orange Order Mervyn Jess (O’Brien Press, €11.95) ISBN 97808627896619 The Orange Order: a contemporary Northern Irish history Eric P. Kaufmann (Oxford University Press, £30) ISBN 9780199208487 Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945: the decline of the loyal family Henry Patterson and Eric Kaufmann (Manchester University Press, £16.99) ISBN 9780719077449 Orangeism, once the … Read more

‘Degenerating from sterling Irishmen into contemptible West Britons’: the GAA and rugby in Kerry, 1885–1905

For the first two decades of the GAA’s existence, rugby rather than Gaelic football was seen by many as Kerry’s pre-eminent sport. That rugby should have attained popularity in the county is hardly surprising. The traditional game of ‘caid’ had been popular among the Kerry peasantry for centuries. Rugby’s spread into Kerry in the early 1880s was … Read more