In Ireland, public meetings are absolutely necessary preliminar.1. ies to any enterprise … The hard-headed, commercially-minded Ulsterman is just as fond of public meetings as the Connacht Celt. He would hold them with drums and full-dress speechifying, even if he were organising a secret society and arranging for a rebellion. George A. Birmingham, General John … Read more
There is a difference between the Irish battle for the land in the nineteenth century and the battle for the soil. Soil is what land becomes when it is ideologically constructed as a natal source, that element out of which the Irish originate and to which their past generations have returned. It is a political … Read more
During the later middle ages the Caelic-speaking regions of Ireland and Scotland witnessed a revival in influence. In Ireland, the decline of Anglo-Norman power in the mid-fourteenth century facilitated a partial indigenous ‘reconquest’, whilst in Scotland the Hebridean population escaped Norse rule to maintain a degree of autonomy within the kingdom of Scotland. At … Read more
Because they recorded exactly what was in front of the camera when the shutter was opened, old photographs are a particularly potent source of information about the historical past. In recent years the local history market has been flooded with an array of books based on compilations of such material. These publications have proved extremely … Read more
On 2 February 1773, four peers – Lord Townshend, the Earl of Bel/amont and their seconds Lords Ancram and Ligonier – assembled in Marylebone Fields on the outskirts of London to determine an affair of honour. The dispute arose from an injury Townshend was deemed to have done Bellamont the previous year when he was … Read more