In 1771 a ‘Signor Pastorini’ (actually the English bishop Charles Walmesley) asked: ‘How long, O Lord, do you defer judging our cause, you who are holy and must detest the cruelties exercised upon us; you, who are true and have told us, you will revenge the injuries done to your servants?’ He also declared that … Read more
The ‘Captain Rock’ campaign of 1821–4 is one in a series of outbreaks of agrarian unrest that began in the 1760s and continued until the eve of the Famine, when starvation finally made concerted action impossible and the landlords closed in to make the evictions and clearances they had long desired. The Rock years were … Read more
BROWNE, George (1698–1792), soldier of fortune, Russian army officer, governor of Livonia and count of the Holy Roman Empire, was born on 15 June 1698 at Moyne (Castle Mahan), Co. Limerick, son of George Browne of Camas (an uncle of the Austrian marshal Maximilian Ulysses von Browne) and his wife Honora de Lacy. Educated in … Read more
The past decade has seen a considerable rise in interest in the work of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, best known as a portrait painter. Fintan Cullen’s work on Hamilton has provoked a major reassessment of Hamilton’s importance in the history of Irish art, and Cullen’s analysis of the portrait of Richard Mansergh St George posing beside … Read more
Modern postal services date back to 1840, when the first ‘penny post’ was introduced in Ireland and Britain by (Sir) Rowland Hill, the British tax and social reformer; until then, letters were charged on a sliding system based on distance to be carried. Cheap pre-paid postage at a uniform rate, and speedy delivery through the … Read more