Number 84 Douglas Street is one of a pair of terraced houses in the South Parish of Cork, one of the city’s oldest suburbs. There are many historic buildings in the area, including Cork’s oldest standing structure, the fifteenth-century Red Abbey tower; the South Presentation Convent complex; eighteenth-century terraces along George’s Quay and White Street; … Read more
Huge population growth in British cities after the industrial revolution brought with it an increase in the number of public houses. By the turn of the twentieth century British newspapers were heaving with reports of the rise in alcohol-related crime, pauperism and insanity. In Ireland the social problems caused by drunkenness spurred proposed amendments to … Read more
Over the past ten years, as a result of increased immigration from various parts of the world, Ireland has become a more visibly multicultural society. These migration patterns are not random. The establishment of the Irish Muslim community, for example, is partly rooted in Ireland’s shared colonial history with India and South Africa under the … Read more
The twelve-volume series of official British documents, The transfer of power in India 1942–7, published between 1967 and 1982 is full of references to Ireland, many of them dire warnings about the awful example that Ireland offered to the British government as Indian independence approached. The editor-in-chief, Irishman Nicholas Mansergh, Professor of Commonwealth History at … Read more
The Great Bengal Famine of 1943–4 resulted in the deaths from starvation and famine-related diseases of over two million people. In pre-partition Bengal it reawakened dim collective memories of Chhiatt?rer monn?ntór, the massive but poorly documented famine that had produced devastation in 1770. In India and Bangladesh both famines are seen as colonial famines: the … Read more