The union of the English, Irish and Scottish crowns in the person of James, self-styled king of Great Britain and Ireland, both facilitated and heralded a monumental shift in ‘English’ Crown policy. Since the Scottish Wars of Independence of the late thirteenth/early fourteenth century, successive English kings and queens had endeavoured to keep the Scots, … Read more
Throughout Ireland there are monuments, place-names, pitches and pavilions that convey the story of where and how the Irish played. No inventory of these sites currently exists, however. Sporting sites tell us a great deal about how societies are organised by class, gender, religion and social status. They are linked to the social and cultural … Read more
First the big news—Oliver Cromwell has apologised to the Irish people for massacring them and sending them off to Barbados as slaves. Well, he has not spoken in person but the Arise Mission from his home town of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, has issued an apology on his behalf and brought a letter to that effect to … Read more
In 1608–9, through a mixture of threats and promises from James I, the City of London become involved in the most planned and orderly of the various plantation schemes in Ireland. Fifty-five of its livery companies eventually became financial backers of the plantation, and in return their governing body, the Irish Society, received a royal … Read more
The construction of Derry/Londonderry’s Guildhall and its stained glass windows was financed by the Honourable the Irish Society to replace an earlier town hall destroyed by fire in 1908. Reporting on the opening ceremonies, the London Times of 21 September 1912 declared that ‘. . . The Londonderry Guildhall is a fine modern building, the … Read more