In 1914 approximately 57,000 Irishmen were serving in the British Army and its reserves. It is now generally accepted that over the following four years of the Great War another 144,000 enlisted, giving a total figure of approximately 200,000. Why did they enlist? Motivation varied from the personal—restlessness, a thirst for adventure or a wish … Read more
The history of Irish sport is a neglected realm. There is no general history of sport in Ireland, and reliable histories of individual sports are few and far between. Yet sport contributes a significant strand to modern Irish identity. The annual Irish invasion of Cheltenham for Gold Cup week, the friendly fervour of Ireland’s soccer … Read more
Following Henry VIII’s break with Rome—leaving England diplomatically weakened and strategically vulnerable to her largest European rivals, France and Spain—an increasing number of royal officials regarded the need to consolidate and expand the English lordship of Ireland beyond the confines of the Pale as an urgent matter of self-defence. Henry VIII was the first English … Read more
Very few Viking sites outside the major towns have ever been discovered in Ireland, and none outside Dublin has been excavated since the 1940s. And yet historical records such as the Irish annals describe many occupied Viking sites in the ninth- and tenth-century Irish countryside, often referring to them as longphorts. Longphorts and rural … Read more
As topics go, the Spanish Armada has everything: great personalities, grand strategy, warfare on land and sea, diplomatic manoeuvres and conspiracies, propaganda in abundance and religions to die for—all available in a rich range of primary sources (documentary, visual and artefactual) and in a variety of secondary literature and websites. Many of the issues involved, … Read more