The early to mid-1920s was a period of despondency for the Irish labour movement. The victory of the Free State regime in the Civil War was accompanied by an all-out assault on the wages and conditions of Irish workers. Major strikes involving postal workers, Dublin dockers and Waterford farm labourers were just three of a … Read more
As the First World War was entering its final stages, a pandemic of unprecedented virulence, which we now know to be the H1N1 influenza virus, infected one billion people around the globe and may have killed approximately 100 million. It spread with remarkable speed, striking in three almost simultaneous waves in various parts of the … Read more
In the absence of any one effective medicine or vaccine, doctors used abroad range of Bovril notice (Irish Independent, 23 December 1918) treatments for the symptoms of influenza. These includedcalomel (as a purgative), oxygen, stimulants (including strychnine),salicylates, quinine, trional or some preparation of opium forsleeplessness, gargles prepared from a tincture of creosote or asolution of … Read more
On 17 April 1920, a coroner’s jury investigating the shooting of Cork lord mayor (and IRA brigade commander) Tomás MacCurtain issued its famous finding of ‘wilful murder’ against Prime Minister David Lloyd George and top civil and police officials in Ireland. The verdict provoked a predictable response from, amongst others, the Irish Times, which mocked … Read more
The past decade has seen a considerable rise in interest in the work of Hugh Douglas Hamilton, best known as a portrait painter. Fintan Cullen’s work on Hamilton has provoked a major reassessment of Hamilton’s importance in the history of Irish art, and Cullen’s analysis of the portrait of Richard Mansergh St George posing beside … Read more