In the wake of the 1798 rebellion a wave of agrarian agitation swept Munster. Superficially the disaffection—centred on the counties of Limerick, Cork and Tipperary, although there were incidents throughout the province—seemed to be the latest manifestation of the long-term phenomenon of ‘Whiteboyism’. This generic term denotes the activities of the agrarian secret societies that … Read more
Oliver Plunkett is unquestionably one of the best-known churchmen in Irish history. Of Old English stock from Meath, he left Ireland during the chaos of the 1640s to be educated in Rome, eventually returning to Ireland as archbishop of Armagh. An energetic and gifted (if contentious) reformer, he was arrested in December 1679 and executed … Read more
‘Itinerants first went on the road due to extreme poverty in Ireland. Unlike British or European gypsies the itinerants are the product not of an ancient, highly cultured race with its own folklore and culture but of the immiseration of a section of the ordinary, illiterate peasantry in Ireland . . . Itinerants went and … Read more
‘Itinerants first went on the road due to extreme poverty in Ireland. Unlike British or European gypsies the itinerants are the product not of an ancient, highly cultured race with its own folklore and culture but of the immiseration of a section of the ordinary, illiterate peasantry in Ireland . . . Itinerants went and … Read more
Sir, —In his examiner’s report on my Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (HI 12.2, Summer 2004), Manus O’Riordan awards me ‘9 out of 10 as to balanced presentation of a voluminous amount of evidence’, but a miserable fail in applying my ‘declared aim of impartiality’ to the ‘accompanying commentary’. Though I declared no such aims in … Read more