The Book of Fenagh (RIA MS 23 P 26 [cat. no. 479]) is a vellum manuscript which now comprises 41 folios, some having been lost at an unknown point in its history. The manuscript was carefully written in an elegant script on good-quality vellum. Though relatively modest in length, it was nonetheless a prestige manuscript, … Read more
Recent years have witnessed a sea change in political and public opinion regarding Ireland’s military tradition with the British armed forces and a renewed appreciation of the Irish Defences Forces and their service. Within this positive environment, in 2010 the Curragh Military Museum was established by the Irish Defence Forces with the objective of highlighting … Read more
The Gray family had strong connections with Australia. Sir John Gray’s brother, Wilson Gray, had emigrated to Australia in 1855; he was active there in the land reform movement and served as a member of the legislative assembly of Victoria. He was later district judge of the Otago goldfields in New Zealand. Moreover, Edmund Senior … Read more
Craniology was another ‘science’ that dealt with the human skull, in this case an attempt to characterise different ethnic groups—human races—by measurements of their skulls, having previously defined fixed anatomical landmarks on its surface. While the American Civil War raged on the issue of slavery in the 1860s, some supporters of slavery in Britain—initially concentrated … Read more
Phrenology assumed that if someone had a tendency to act in a certain way, for instance admiring the landscape, the part of the brain building up the aesthetic experience would be well developed to support such over-activity, at the expense of a diminished development of some other area. This differential brain development would be reflected—they … Read more