Features

‘Infatuated to his ruin’: the fate of Thomas Dermody, 1775-1802

Russell K. Alspach, in Irish poetry from the English invasion to 1798, wrote of The Harp of Erin (1807), a substantial, posthumously published anthology of Thomas Dermody’s verse, that one could go through it ‘without stumbling on anything that even faintly resembles poetry’. Dermody’s means deter-mined his themes; thus he wrote safe poems to flatter … Read more

Restoration Dublin in the Ireland of its time c. 1660-1700

During the 1650s, Sir William Petty surveyed Ireland on behalf of Oliver Cromwell’s government, in order to facilitate the dispossession and transplantation of the Catholic Irish after the devastating wars of the 1640s. In later years he settled into the twin roles of landlord and scientist in Ireland, and at some point in the 1680s … Read more