I myself am not Irish, even though my name can be rendered Terence O. Ranger. (An American MA student, asked to assess my work on African history, argued that with a name like that I was inevitably sympathetic to African nationalism. Alas, my forebears are Kentish Jutes.) When I went to Africa in 1957 to … Read more
TG: Tell us a bit about your background. BM: I was typically London Irish. My father, John, came from a farming family with land at Tarelton and Inchigeelagh, Co. Cork. He graduated as a doctor at University College Cork in 1928 and came to England to practise. My mother, Kathleen O’Brien, was born in London … Read more
‘At Lincoln Cathedral there is a beautiful painted window, which was made by an apprentice out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected by his master.’ With this parable the budding English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay illustrated the central argument of his 1828 debut essay ‘History’, which advocated that historical scholarship could benefit … Read more
Shortly after 2am on Thursday 16 October 1943, Volunteer John Blake, at Loop Head lookout post, reported to the air message centre at Limerick that an aircraft of unknown nationality had been sighted about a mile to the north of the post. It was flying from the west in an easterly direction at 500ft, with … Read more
The establishment of the Kynoch explosives factory in Arklow was due to the vision and ambition of two men, Arthur Chamberlain and A.T. Cocking. Arthur Chamberlain was a Birmingham industrialist and brother of the famous liberal politician Joseph Chamberlain. In 1888 Chamberlain joined the board of Kynoch and set about reviving the fortunes of … Read more