‘Bullet-throwing’, as it was almost universally called in Belfast, involved the throwing of an iron ball weighing 28 ounces along a course of two to three miles. A match or ‘score’ was most often contested by single players, but doubles matches also occurred. The winner or winners were those who completed the course with the … Read more
RTÉ’s new primetime drama Charlie, which charts the life and times of arguably Ireland’s most notorious—not to mention corrupt—politician, Charles J. Haughey, has rekindled the public’s fascination with the Irish political landscape of the 1980s The 1980s will forever be remembered for their prolonged economic recession, mass unemployment, institutionalised emigration and the ongoing Troubles in … Read more
Úna Byrne’s Mission to Clean Up the Irish Housewives Association In 1961, the Irish Housewives Association (IHA) hosted the Congress of the International Alliance of Women at the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology – an institute founded by Archbishop McQuaid to promote Catholic social teaching. Mary Cullen’s article “Women, Emancipation and Politics from 1800-1984” posited … Read more
The centenaries of the third Home Rule bill and the outbreak of the First World War have sparked debate on how Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond was allegedly wiped from the historical memory of independent Ireland. In fact, the early 1920s saw major national tributes paid to Redmond, with thousands of old supporters in … Read more
The Quit Rent Office holds records relating to some of the Crown’s former land revenues, natural assets and franchises in Ireland between the 1660s and the 1930s. In 1923 the records were transferred to the Irish Free State. After 1943 the historic Quit Rent Office records were transferred to the Public Records Office (now the … Read more