The Swilly estuary’s physical dynamic, coupled with its terrain characteristics and tidal water, creates a formidable tactical and strategic obstacle. This would be an important but underestimated element of O’Donnell’s victory. On entering O’Donnell’s territory, O’Neill had to cross this imposing physical barrier. Once across, his advancing army encountered steep hills to its front and … Read more
In June 1518 a fleet carrying the Archduke Ferdinand from Spain to the Low Countries was blown off course and arrived in Kinsale. One member of that expedition, Laurent Vital, has left us a hidden history of the Irish in a series of fascinating, risqué and controversial scenes and stories that illuminate Ireland on the … Read more
Picture this: you are approaching the rudimentary home of a soldier one evening as the dusk falls. Squinting through the uncertain light, you wonder for a moment why a man such as this should have contrived a kind of rockery alongside the path that leads to his tent. In fact, the objects neatly spaced on … Read more
Sir,—May I congratulate Gerald Power for his absorbing article ‘Hidden in plain sight: the nobility of Tudor Ireland’ (HI 20.1, Jan./Feb. 2012). It is a shame that historians have tended to study the Irish aristocracy from either a narrow genealogical perspective—tracing bloodlines and who inherited what and when—or as participants, viewed en masse from afar, … Read more
The old bridge at Ennisnag, crossing the King’s River outside Stonyford, is located approximately six miles south of Kilkenny and lies on the original road connecting Kilkenny to Waterford. The bridge was bypassed in 1827 when the ‘new’ Ennisnag Bridge, a three-arch ashlar structure, was built downstream.The downstream face shows a picturesque bridge that appears … Read more