From Memoirs, a personal appearance on her balcony opposite White’s: ‘The next day, as I was sprinkling some flower pots, which stood on very broad leads, under the dining-room window, Colonel Duncombe, the Duke of Bolton, and the Earl of Winchilsea stood filling out wine, and drinking to me: So I took up the pen … Read more
There is an irresistible passage in Laetitia Pilkington’s 1748 Memoirs. It is her version of the dramatic moment when she was discovered by her husband, in the marital bedroom, with another man. The door was broken down (unnecessarily, since it wasn’t locked) and twelve witnesses piled in. ‘I own myself very indiscreet in permitting any … Read more
Ireland and Romania lie at opposite corners of Europe. An obvious link is that both countries have well-developed rural cultures and have only relatively recently escaped the embrace of adjacent domineering empires. Another is that for just over a century they have shared the sinister figure of Count Dracula. Dracula, the 1897 novel by Dublin-born … Read more
Arrested development: Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1917–2008 Niall Meehan teases out some of the contradictions of a man who wrote, made and was the product of history. In October 1906 The Times of London noted ‘disgraceful scenes’ at the Royal University of Ireland. The chancellor was interrupted with cries of ‘Sinn Féin’ and ‘God Save Ireland’. … Read more
John Koch suggests that Tartessian is ‘more than a little bit Celtic’ and adds a new twist to the assertion, long since dismissed as invention, that the Gaels (Milesians) originated in the Iberian Peninsula. The myth and mystery of Tartessos For Greek and Roman writers, Tartessos was a place of fabulous natural wealth in silver … Read more