Constance Markievicz: feminist, revolutionary—and Catholic. By Mary Kenny During the 2018 referendum on removing the eighth amendment from the Irish Constitution (which recognised the right to life of the unborn), feminist campaigners for repeal invoked images of the revolutionary and feminist Constance Markievicz to support their side of the campaign. But would Con Markievicz have … Read more
EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum, collaborates with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to showcase the global Irish diaspora. By Angela Byrne In 2018–19 EPIC is working together with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to celebrate global Irish emigration through the centuries, and to enhance connections with the Irish diaspora today, … Read more
The Harvard Archaeological Mission to Ireland, 1932–6. By Mairéad Carew The driving force behind the Harvard Archaeological Mission to Ireland was eugenics, now considered a pseudo-science and a variant of scientific racism. It was then regarded as the science of better breeding for human beings and had been established as a discipline in several … Read more
Field hockey has been played by women in Ireland for a little more than a century and a quarter. The Irish Ladies’ Hockey Union, instituted in 1894, was the first national organisation of the game in the world, and the first international match took place in Dublin two years later. By John Lucey The success … Read more
Ireland and the history of blasphemy. By David Nash For much of the twentieth century, western governments believed either that blasphemy laws were long-dead fragments of a bygone age or that they simply sat quietly and unnoticed in dust-laden legal volumes away from the public gaze. Events at the end of the twentieth century indicated … Read more