In 1793–4 Anthologia Hibernica published a series of letters by ‘Mentor’ on the philosophy of nature, covering a wide range of mathematical and scientific topics. Letter eighteen in October 1794 dealt with the nature and properties of magnetism. This was followed in November by one on electricity in which ‘Mentor’ described what he called a … Read more
March 2007 marks the centenary of the death of John O’Leary, immortalised in the refrain of W. B. Yeats’s ballad ‘September 1913’. Owen McGee poses the question: can this ‘Romantic Ireland’ that Yeats spoke of be historically defined, and why did he associate it particularly with O’Leary? Yeats evidently equated the death of ‘Romantic Ireland’ … Read more
In April 1920 Eamon de Valera stepped off the train at Birmingham, Alabama. Only days before the city had officially ‘unwelcomed’ him. A small party of merely curious onlookers were joined by a police squadron that had been mobilised to prevent disorder or to prohibit any type of parade given in honour of the ‘so-called … Read more
‘Itinerants first went on the road due to extreme poverty in Ireland. Unlike British or European gypsies the itinerants are the product not of an ancient, highly cultured race with its own folklore and culture but of the immiseration of a section of the ordinary, illiterate peasantry in Ireland . . . Itinerants went and … Read more
In 1956 John Redmond’s political opponent Eamon de Valera paid a generous tribute to him as ‘a great Wexfordman . . . who worked unselfishly for the welfare of this country’. On the same occasion (the centenary of Redmond’s birth) the then taoiseach, John A. Costello, spoke of him as ‘a leader of the Movement … Read more