Charter schools were intended to solve the problem facing a victorious people taking over a defeated, impoverished country from the 1690s onwards. With almost a quarter of the Irish population killed or exiled, the rest were needed as a labour force for the new masters of the land. Yet how was it possible to trust … Read more
St Mary’s Square was designed by the notable architect A.W.N. Pugin in the 1840s at the height of the ‘Gothic Revival’, extending west of St Joseph’s Square to what is now the south campus of NUI Maynooth. Owing to the limited grant of £30,000 for its construction, Pugin agreed to omit designs for the chapel, … Read more
In his 1911 Labour in Irish history, James Connolly dismissed King James II as ‘the most worthless representative of the most worthless race ever to sit on a throne’. Many Stuart candidates could claim this unflattering accolade during their 500-year stewardship of Scotland and 85-year reign over the three kingdoms. Their bloodied history comprises a … Read more
In 1689 Irish men and women were drawn into the struggle between the Catholic James II and the Protestant William III for the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. This was the most ‘conventional’ war between the Nine Years’ War and the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland, with two major European-scale battles in the field and … Read more
It is hardly surprising that Irish historians have been reluctant to engage with negative later medieval English perceptions of Ireland (see sidebar below), other than to impugn their veracity. In regard to the English Pale, for instance, studies of interaction between Gaedhil and Gaill have aimed to disprove its status as an international frontier; depictions … Read more