LYNCH, Eliza Alicia (1834–86), mistress of Francisco Solano López (dictator of Paraguay, 1862–70), was born in Charleville, Co. Cork, the eldest of at least three children of John Lynch, a Catholic doctor, and his wife, Jane Elizabeth, second daughter of Captain William Lloyd, RN. Little is known of Eliza’s life before her marriage, at the … Read more
This special issue of History Ireland on Ireland and Latin America serves to highlight the interesting and diverse range of links between these two parts of the world. At the same time it throws into sharp relief the astonishing neglect of the region by the Irish state, by Irish civil society and by the Irish … Read more
Born in Ballykelly, Co. Derry, in 1729, William Martin was remarkable for being the first Irish-born minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, which had been introduced by Scottish settlers in the 1660s. In 1760 he became the minister of Kellswater, Co. Antrim, the oldest congregation in the Irish synod. This was a time of economic … Read more
Joseph and Bridget Moore may not be household names but they were real people, Irish immigrants who lived in 1869 at 97 Orchard Street, in New York’s Lower East Side. Now they and their family have been immortalised in the latest addition to the city’s Tenement Museum, located today at the same address. The recreated … Read more
‘As a 16-year-old in the summer of 1962 I was working in the bar of the Marine Hotel, Kilkee, Co. Clare, when who walked through the door but Che Guevara and two minders! They looked like desperados entering a saloon. I recognised him immediately but I wasn’t totally overawed. People like Richard Harris had been … Read more