Throughout Ireland there are monuments, place-names, pitches and pavilions that convey the story of where and how the Irish played. No inventory of these sites currently exists, however. Sporting sites tell us a great deal about how societies are organised by class, gender, religion and social status. They are linked to the social and cultural … Read more
In 1960 newly elected President John F. Kennedy was worried about an imaginary US–USSR nuclear ‘missile gap’. In Dublin Miss Elizabeth Synnott’s employment agency was worried by a ‘Protestant gap’. In early January 1960 in the Irish Times she advertised that ‘Protestant shorthand typists’ were ‘urgently wanted’. Later that month, ‘a Protestant shorthand typist (senior)’ … Read more
If anyone in Ireland is asked which side the country favoured in World War II, ‘The Allies, of course!’ will be the almost invariable reply. Ireland, after all, was Britain’s nearest neighbour. Tens of thousands served in the British armed forces; an even larger number earned their living in Britain’s war industries. The Irish government … Read more
Hannah and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins founded the radical Irish Women’s Franchise League (IWFL) in 1908; Hanna was elected chairwoman and Meg Connery served as vice-chairwoman. The IWFL was the most outspoken and public manifestation of women’s discontent and radical feminism in Ireland. Its primary aim was to secure women’s suffrage within Home Rule. … Read more
Sir,— I am currently researching a book on the Bayno, the famous playcentre established by the first Lord Iveagh in 1909 in the Myra Hall inFrancis Street, Dublin, and then transferred to Bull Alley in 1915.This magnificent building was created by Iveagh inspired by thepeople’s palaces movement in England, particularly that on the Mile EndRoad … Read more