Mir Aulad remains a bit of an enigma, especially as his name and origins are subject to speculation. Sometimes spelt phonetically, ‘Meer Owlad Allee’ was from Oudh (now known as Audah), which had been one of the provinces of the Mughal Empire in India. Whilst this area was effectively a vassal of the British East … Read more
LOCKE, Josef (1917–99), singer and entertainer, was born Joseph McLaughlin on 23 March 1917 at 19 Creggan Street, Derry city, one of ten children of Patrick McLaughlin, butcher and cattle-dealer, and Annie McLaughlin (née Doherty). Educated by the Christian Brothers and awarded for his singing at local feiseanna, he performed at St Eugene’s Cathedral. He … Read more
Interactives are an important part of modern museum exhibitions and there are 35 in the ‘Soldiers & Chiefs’ exhibition. Those dealing with the Irish Defence Forces are focused on films of the army in action lent to the museum by Military Archives and the Irish Film Archive. The first is a 1939 recruiting film, Step … Read more
Early life Eileen Gray was born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford, on 9 August 1878. She was the youngest of five children. The family changed their name to Gray in 1893, after her mother, Lady Eveleen Pounden, claimed her title, Baroness Gray. Her father, James MacLaren Smith, was a Scottish landscape … Read more
In the wake of the success of The longest day, the pressure on Dublin-born ‘narrative historian’ Cornelius Ryan to produce a worthy successor was enormous. Initially he planned to tackle the disastrous battle for Arnhem, but the Soviet invitation to view their military archives in Moscow shifted his attention to the Battle for Berlin. He … Read more