In 1843 Irish artist Joseph Patrick Haverty painted a scene from a ‘monster meeting’ at Clifden, Co. Galway. The meeting had been organised by the Loyal National Repeal Association and the painting consisted of a collection of mini-portraits of the leading members of the Association as they listened to Daniel O’Connell delivering a speech. Although … Read more
Ihe landing of arms at Larne on 30 March 1914 prompted the Irish Volunteers to purchase and bring ashore their own arms shipment. The O’Rahilly directed Darrell Figgis and Erskine Childers to a firm in Hamburg, where they purchased 1,500 rifles and 45,000 rounds of ammunition. Historian Alice Stopford Green was responsible for raising most … Read more
When Lord Frederick Cavendish was killed by the Invincibles in the Phoenix Park in May 1882, nothing like it had happened in British political life since Prime Minister Spencer Percival was shot dead in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1812. Percival is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated, and … Read more
History painting—the most important, albeit conservative, manner of European painting—was occasionally subverted in Ireland for anti-establishment purposes. James Barry’s St Patrick Baptizing the King of Cashel (1763), Daniel Maclise’s Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife (1854) and John Mulvany’s Battle of Aughrim (1885) all show the inherent versatility of the genre in presenting alternative views of … Read more
The mythologising of Brian Boru began within a generation or two of his death at Clontarf. Cogadh Gáedhel re Gallaibh, an early twelfth-century O’Brienite propagandist tract, first articulated a vision of Brian as belonging to a long line of universal heroic leaders and kings, combining the military prowess of Alexander, the wisdom of Solomon, the … Read more