Until recently, few women were given prominence in the long list of Kilmainham Gaol’s political prisoners. However, after the 1916 Rising seventy-seven women were held prisoner in Kilmainham for their part in the rebellion, and at the height of the Civil War in 1923 over three-hundred women, aged between twelve and seventy, were imprisoned there. … Read more
While the recent public demonstration of members of the Garda Siochána is unprecedented it is not the first time there has been unrest amongst an Irish police force on questions of pay and conditions. Up to 1925 responsibility for policing Dublin rested with the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), founded in 1835. At the turn of … Read more
Many countries today face, or will soon face, one of two population problems. Some countries’ populations are growing so rapidly that sheer numbers will endanger their ability to provide schooling, employment, and basic social amenities to their people. Other countries face a situation nearly the opposite. Their population growth is very slow, or in some … Read more
In the late 1880s trade unionism was an almost unknown phenomenon among unskilled and semi-skilled workers in Connacht. In the agrarian sector it was only the herdsmen who had made efforts to organise in unions, and in the towns it was the artisans and drapers’ assistants who were organised to a certain degree. Twenty-five years … Read more
Over the past three decades historians have documented fully the rise and successful mobilisation of Irish national consciousness during the nineteenth century and the subsequent establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. What is not so well known is that by an evolving, if often haphazard, process of reform in county and municipal administration … Read more