Robert Boyle was born at Lismore Castle in 1627. The youngest son of Richard Boyle, the ‘Great Earl’ of Cork, he was to become a follower of the ‘new experimental philosophy’ and the greatest advocate of experimental science. Boyle was one of the most important thinkers of the age known as the scientific revolution, ranking … Read more
Within weeks of the famously bloody first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, audiences in the UK were crowding into cinemas to see the reality of combat for themselves.The feature-length film The Battle of the Somme,shot by official cinematographers Geoffrey Malins and John McDowell, opened in August 1916. It showed the … Read more
Another sensational trial of the First World War, where politics, law and sexuality mixed in a combustible cocktail, concerned ‘the libel trial of the century’. In early 1918 the Imperialist, a right-wing journal owned by the independent MP Noel Pemberton-Billing and funded by the minister of information and press baron Max Aitken, reported the existence … Read more
Joseph Edelstein was among the most eccentric Dublin characters of his era. Born in Portobello in 1886, the son of Russian-born parents, he was a writer and an effective public speaker who frequently addressed United Irish League meetings. In 1908, the year in which his novel The moneylender caused controversy in the Jewish community, he … Read more
It should be remembered that some of the information contained in the files held in the PRONI was compiled by the government of Northern Ireland before any official announcement was made by the USSR government. It wasn’t until 14 May 1986 that Mikhail Gorbachev, as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, … Read more