FITZPATRICK, Sir Bernard Edward Barnaby (1848–1937), second Baron Castletown, landlord, soldier, sportsman and adventurer, was born on 29 July 1848 in London, only son and eldest of six children of John Wilson Fitzpatrick, first Baron Castletown, soldier and landlord, of Abbeyleix, Queen’s County (Laois), and Augusta Fitzpatrick (née Douglas) of Coote Hill, Co. Armagh. He … Read more
Nineteen-sixteen is looked on as a pivotal year in Irish history, but 1917, with the rapid growth of political Sinn Féin, was the year when the democratic foundations of nationhood were established. Sinn Féin won by-elections with Count Plunkett in Roscommon, McGuinness in Longford and de Valera in Clare. These political victories led to the … Read more
In the mid-nineteenth century a new kind of Turkish bath was pioneered in Ireland, one that on the Continent is still called the ‘Roman-Irish bath’. This Victorian ‘improved Turkish Bath’ was modelled on the Roman system and relied on a flow of dry rather than moist air in the series of progressively hotter rooms in … Read more
In 1771 a ‘Signor Pastorini’ (actually the English bishop Charles Walmesley) asked: ‘How long, O Lord, do you defer judging our cause, you who are holy and must detest the cruelties exercised upon us; you, who are true and have told us, you will revenge the injuries done to your servants?’ He also declared that … Read more