The troubles of the last twenty five years have served to focus the minds of Ulster people on their history. They are more conscious than ever of their ancestors-Gaelic, Norman, English, Huguenot, Lowland Scot, Highland Scot. But that consciousness has neglected and all but forgotten one particularly influential immigrant group. Most often they are … Read more
In 1913 Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Daily Mail, offered a prize of £10,000 for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic by a ‘heavier than air’ machine. A seventy-two hour time limit was set under rules drawn up and administered by the Royal Aero Club. The competition was suspended for the duration of the … Read more
As Ireland’s historians have duelled through contentious and sometimes acrimonious debate in recent years about new research and revisions concerning Irish history, historians in the United States have been engaged in a transformation of studies about the past of the Irish in America. Their differences have not been so loudly declaimed or headlined as those … Read more
On the evening of 18 April 1894 a triumphant Horace Plunkett wrote in his diary: The meeting to inaugurate the lAOS [Irish Agricultural Organisation Society] came off and was brilliantly successful. About 250 present and thoroughly representative of all sides of Irish life. I spoke for 1 1/4 hours & spoke well. The movement is … Read more
In 1324, Richard Ledrede, bishop of Ossory, declared that his diocese was a hotbed of devil worshippers. The central figure in this affair was Alice Kyteler, a wealthy Kilkenny woman who stood accused of witchcraft by her stepchildren. It was the first witchcraft trial to treat the accused as heretics and the first to accuse … Read more