Parnell appears to have been happier with Katharine O’Shea than Abby was with Samuel Abbott, but he and Katharine were constantly trying to deceive her husband, Captain William O’Shea, about the nature of their relationship. In 1881 O’Shea challenged Parnell to a duel and in 1886 he pressured Parnell to obtain a seat in the … Read more
Richard Butler, Viscount Mountgarret, Leinster Nicholas Preston, Viscount Gormanston, Leinster Nicholas Netterville, Viscount Netterville, Leinster William Fleming, baron of Slane, Leinster Barnaby Fitzpatrick, baron of Upper Ossory, Leinster David Rothe, bishop of Ossory, Leinster Sir Edward Butler, Leinster Sir Richard Barnwell, Leinster Piers Butler, Leinster Philip Hore, Leinster Richard Bellings, Leinster Christopher Nugent, Leinster Robert … Read more
Recent scholarly interest in Confederate Ireland has created a vastly clearer picture of a traditionally murky period in Irish history. Admittedly, some five decades passed before Micheál Ó Siochrú built upon the pioneering research of Donál Cregan in the 1940s, but both historians acknowledged that the destruction of official records prevented an exhaustive study of … Read more
As is the case for other early Irish laws, detailed penalties are laid down for various severities of injury: ‘If it be a life-wound any one inflicts on a woman or a cleric or an innocent, seven half-cumals are due from him . . . Three séts for every white blow, five séts for every … Read more
The text of the law is found in two manuscripts, one from the fifteenth and one from the seventeenth century, both based on a no-longer-extant manuscript referred to as ‘the Old Book of Raphoe’. One of the manuscripts is a Michéal Ó Cléirigh text of 1627, itself based on a manuscript written by his cousin … Read more