Bob Tisdall, from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, had established a reputation as a great all-round athlete as an undergraduate at Cambridge University in the years leading up to 1932. In April of the Olympic year he had written to General Eoin O’Duffy, then the top man in Irish sports organisation, asking to be considered for selection … Read more
As the nineteenth century progressed, prostitution in Dublin became more geographically confined. After the 1870s women began to move into cheaper accommodations available in the Lower Mecklenburgh Street area. The evidence of the Revd Robert Conlan to a commission on housing in 1885 revealed that brothels were extending into the district. He observed that some … Read more
For far too long our definitions of ‘history’ were limited to the political, military and diplomatic, and it is wonderful to see historians now embracing sporting and cultural history with open arms and inquisitive eyes. On previous occasions when sports-history themes have raised their heads in Ireland interest has tended to be mainly in the … Read more
Hunger Director: Steve McQueen by Laurence McKeown I met Steve McQueen and Enda Walsh (writer) when they were in the initial stages of writing the screenplay. The meeting took place in the offices of Coiste na nIarchimí, the republican ex-prisoners’ organisation based in Beechmount Avenue just off the Falls Road, Belfast. The street still bears … Read more
‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’, was the advice given by the crusty old editor in the John Ford western The man who shot Liberty Valence. To a historian it may seem that this is the guiding principle behind the celebrations of the Titanic, history’s most successful disaster. The outline of its story … Read more