‘I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes’, wrote the American poet Carl Sandberg. For Irish historians this line rings true quite literally. The explosion that ripped through the Public Record Office of Ireland at the Four Courts, Dublin, on 30 June 1922 destroyed much of Ireland’s documentary heritage dating back to the … Read more
The current phase of the CIRCLE project began in 2008 with funding from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. But in fact the Irish Chancery Project was originally the brainchild of Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven, the formidable Lecky Professor of History at Trinity between 1951 and 1980. Work on the reconstruction first got … Read more
In the 1630s King Charles I devoted considerable resources to increasing the strength of the royal navy by building large ships such as the Sovereign of the Seas. In 1642, however, at the outbreak of civil war in England, the bulk of the navy sided with parliament rather than with the king. By the summer … Read more
In 1648 a revolt broke out among the fleet stationed in the Downs and a number of ships defected to the royalists in Holland. Prince Rupert (right), the king’s nephew and an experienced soldier, took command of the ships. In January 1649 the prince led a flotilla of seven warships from Helvoetsluys to Kinsale. Following … Read more
On 13 August 1649 Oliver Cromwell and a flotilla of around 35 ships sailed from Milford Haven to Dublin. Cromwell spent most of the voyage being seasick. A second, larger fleet of approximately 84 vessels sailed the next day and also arrived at Dublin after adverse weather prevented them from landing in Munster. A third, … Read more