Seán MacBride led a remarkable and varied life. Much of it was paradoxical and often controversial. He was a revolutionary, a journalist, a barrister, a statesman, a diplomat, a human rights activist and a peace campaigner. Throughout his life, however, certain objectives remained constant. They were Irish unity, the defence of political prisoners, and human … Read more
Irish missionary orders had a dual mission—the religious and the medico-educational—and in many of the regions where they were active the legacy of schools and hospitals bear very obvious marks of their Irish inception. Irish missionary activity was gathering momentum in the early years of the twentieth century, and there were strong connections between the … Read more
‘Whether I shall come out of this like I came out of what is associated with thinking proper I don’t know . . . Ah this work here, the stench, the washing, the enemas, the bed pans, the blood is my world. Not London Society, politics & that gateway into which I so strangely wandered—into … Read more
The sack of Baltimore, the only recorded instance of a slaving raid by corsairs in Ireland, was part of a wider pattern across Europe, encompassing not only the entire Mediterranean region but also the Atlantic seaboard as far north as Iceland. Slave-raiding of Christians by Muslim corsairs became common from the late fifteenth century … Read more