Directed by Kari Skogland by John Gibney 50 Dead Men Walking is a cinematic depiction of the career of the IRA informer Martin McGartland. The actual details of McGartland’s life and career need not detain us; suffice it to say that his former colleagues in the IRA tried to kill him, thereby vouching for … Read more
BINGHAM, George Charles (1800–88), 3rd earl of Lucan, soldier and landlord, was born on 16 April 1800 in London, eldest son of Richard Bingham, 2nd earl of Lucan, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the 3rd earl of Fauconberg. Educated at Westminster School (1812–16), he was commissioned ensign in the 6th Foot in 1816 and … Read more
It is 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 since the publication of his profound theory of evolution. One hundred and twenty-five years ago seven men, four active members of the IRB, emerged from Hayes’s Hotel in Thurles having founded a Gaelic Athletic Association. Just 40 years ago man landed and planted … Read more
The Freeman’s Journal published some 300 Shemus cartoons between 1920 and 1924. These were remarkably hard-hitting comments on the events of this period, reflecting the paper’s editorial stance. Up to the truce of July 1921, which led on to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December, the main thrust of the cartoons was against the increasingly brutal … Read more
A bizarre theft has taken place off the Donegal coast. A two-tonne Mass rock has been stolen from the uninhabited island of Inishtrahull. The island was home to many families until it was evacuated in 1929 and has symbolic significance as it was the last part of Ireland passed by nineteenth-century emigrant ships sailing from … Read more