The minute books of municipal corporations, while not quite reflecting the views of the humbler citizen, capture the affairs that trouble those with their hands on the levers of power and an eye on the concerns of their ratepayers. The minute books of the town commissioners of New Ross, Co. Wexford, survive from 1685. They … Read more
While day-to-day affairs dominate the material, the earlier books nevertheless expose an undercurrent of tension and a concern for the security of the town, the strategic importance of which was shown during the seventeenth-century Confederate Wars when Ross was held by Oliver Cromwell, who destroyed the bridge to prevent recapture. In fact, one of the … Read more
On the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and the Spanish Empire in the Caribbean in 1739, George Anson was commanded to proceed from England to Manila to harass Spanish shipping along the way. Anson’s squadron originally consisted of six warships: the Centurion (flagship), the Gloucester, the Severn, the Pearl, the Wager and the sloop Tryal, … Read more
Prior to the eighteenth century Ireland’s physicians had trained in Europe—in France, Belgium, Italy, Holland or England. When medicine became well established in Scotland, many Irish medical students, especially those from Ulster, went there. Leiden The teaching of medicine in seventeenth-century Europe had followed developments in science, and the University of Leiden in Holland had … Read more
Thomas Molyneux was the first professor of physic in the new medical school. He was a Trinity graduate, having studied for his BA from 1676 to 1680. Medical studies followed between 1683 and 1687, when he spent time in England, Leiden and Paris. While he was at Leiden he compiled a catalogue of two collections … Read more