The Irish Tourist Association (ITA) survey for Limerick city and county was for several years stored away quietly in an old box in Limerick County Library. It was one of those library collections that promised to be a rainy-day project for cataloguing but it was never given any real priority until now. The ITA was … Read more
On Sunday 13 July 2003 the people of Dublin were treated to an impressive parade of hundreds of marching pikemen and women who were commemorating both Bastille Day (albeit a day early) and the 1803 Robert Emmet Rising. The last Bastille Day celebration in Dublin was in 1803, when the United Irishmen gathered in Smock … Read more
The ghostliness of Robert Emmet is not just about the way he haunts the Irish historical imagination; it is sometimes suggested by the very evidence for his physical existence. It was Emmet himself who set the haunting note, insisting in his famous speech from the dock on a form of memorial absence—that his tombstone remain … Read more
On Friday 28 April 1916, with the GPO in flames and British forces closing in, Patrick Pearse, a badly wounded James Connolly and other leaders of the republican uprising in Dublin decided to break out of the Post Office and make for Parnell Place, where they hoped to renew their fight to better advantage. Under … Read more