Pray pity your poor people . . the Mahon papers and the famine of 1822 in the west

Sometime in the mid-1820s tenants on the Mahon estate at Ahascragh in north County Galway wrote to their landlord, begging him not to evict them: ‘Pray pity your poor people who always did and always will pay their rents well, better drown us than turn us off, for there is no place for us anywhere. … Read more

Capturing the quotidian: New Ross Corporation Books, 1685–1900

The minute books of municipal corporations, while not quite reflecting the views of the humbler citizen, capture the affairs that trouble those with their hands on the levers of power and an eye on the concerns of their ratepayers. The minute books of the town commissioners of New Ross, Co. Wexford, survive from 1685. They … Read more

The Tholsel

The Tholsel building was a community resource and the use of rooms illustrates the political and social climate. While such events as scientific and literary lectures by the YMCA and the letting of the large room to a dancing teacher predominated, there were also more ‘political’ leases. In July 1860 a Tenant Right Reading Room … Read more