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
Sir,—Though I question the oft-stated accusation that Arthur Griffith was anti-Semitic, D.R. O’Connor Lysaght appears initially almost magnanimous in his response to Colum Kenny’s letter (HI 24.6, Nov./Dec. 2016) on Arthur Griffith and anti-Semitism by saying that ‘it is possible, certainly, to accept that Griffith’s anti-Semitism diminished as he grew older’ (HI 25.1, Jan./Feb. 2017). … Read more
Frank Roney was recruited into the IRB in Belfast sometime in the early 1860s by Carlow native John Nolan. A moulder by trade, Roney was on the left wing of the Fenian movement. In his later memoir, Irish rebel and California labour leader, he wrote of his disappointment at missing the opportunity to meet Karl … Read more