Dom Mark Tierney, who died in Belgium on 31 December 2011, was a notable liturgist and historian. A monk of Glenstal Abbey, he was born in Dublin in 1925 and educated at CUS in Leeson Street and at University College Dublin. His maternal grandfather was Alfred Blanche, French consul-general in Dublin in the 1920s. He … Read more
The history of the sexuality of Ireland reveals the nation to be something of an oddity. No history is complete without reference to the range of demographic characteristics that set us apart. In 1966, for example, Ireland had the lowest marriage rate in Europe, yet it had the highest marital fertility rate. The percentage of … Read more
A visit to the UK National Archives at Kew is always a special trip for researchers examining manuscripts from the vast collection of material housed at the impressive south London facility. For students of conflict in Ireland, however, a new on-line facility allows researchers to download a wealth of material relating to Ireland from the British … Read more
In 1939, as World War II approached, countries looking at what had happened in the Spanish Civil War prepared for a new form of warfare—attack on civilians from the air. In preparation for this the Irish government purchased 300,000 gasmasks, and a ‘beehive’ shelter was designed by the Irish Defence Forces to resist the blast … Read more
In 1911 the Protestant population in West Cork (defined here as the seven rural districts south of the long-recognised ‘Protestant frontier’ of the Caha Mountains ridge that runs east to Cork Harbour) was 12,228. This dropped to 8,668 in 1926, a decline of 3,560 or 29.11%. If we exclude the 1,045 British military included in … Read more