By Keith Jeffrey It might be argued that the most significant thing about the Irish cultural response to the First World War is its comparative absence. Perhaps it is a case of ‘the dog that didn’t bark’, itself a noteworthy enough reaction to the cataclysmic European events of 1914-18. There is, for example, no extensive … Read more
Sean Murphy It has been claimed that Molly Malone was a real person who lived in the late seventeenth century, and that records of her baptism in St Andrew’s Church and burial in St John’s Graveyard have been discovered. Accordingly, the Grafton Street statue of Molly is dressed in seventeenth- century style and is located … Read more
by Donard de Cogan The electric telegraph was invented in 1837 and proved to be an instant success. It provided new possibilities for the rapid transmission of news and business information. International communications required the use of insulated electrical conductors and the first techniques for coating copper wires with a suitable material were patented by … Read more
by James Lydon On an October day in 1325, in the royal exchequer at Westminster, the accounts of the treasurer of Ireland were being audited. This was a fairly routine matter. The treasurer in question was Walter Islip, who had retired from office in September 1321. Suddenly the audit was interrupted when the routine inquiries … Read more
They have stolen our history’. Thus has the work of professional historians of Ireland been decried in recent years. This statement is true: the labours of historians have wholly revised popular perceptions of the past in Ireland. The catharsis thus engendered would not have been so tempestuous had the historians themselves been better communicators. All … Read more