William O’Brien (1852–1928), from Mallow, was one of Parnell’s chief lieutenants in the 1880s. Originally a journalist with the Freeman’s Journal, O’Brien was recruited to run Parnell’s weekly United Ireland. This was the model for his own later journalistic enterprises, and his embodiment of a type of journalism that focused on the newspaper as political … Read more
Here’s a question for bibliophiles! Who wrote The war of the civilisations? No, I am not talking about Samuel Huntingdon’s 1996 tome, The clash of civilisations and the remaking of the world order. The book to which I refer comes from a radically different era. Its full title is The war of the civilisations: being … Read more
The German sociologist Max Weber was noted for his interest in how the geopolitical position of states affected their domestic politics. Revolutions, civil wars and coups d’état often came ‘from the outside in’, as changes in the international arena weakened central authorities and exposed dominant élites to challenges from below. In contrast, much of … Read more
Tipperary in the eighteenth century was a county where a larger than average portion of the countryside remained in Catholic hands and where, consequently, tensions between the Protestant establishment and leading Catholic families remained high. The single greatest reason for this was the failure of the colonial administration to convert sufficient branches of the Butler … Read more
‘He paid much attention to his own private affairs, and was most careful in the administration of the office entrusted to him and in his conduct of public affairs. Although extremely well versed in the business of war, he was not a success as a general, for he often suffered heavy losses on his expeditions. … Read more