For far too long our definitions of ‘history’ were limited to the political, military and diplomatic, and it is wonderful to see historians now embracing sporting and cultural history with open arms and inquisitive eyes. On previous occasions when sports-history themes have raised their heads in Ireland interest has tended to be mainly in the … Read more
‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’, was the advice given by the crusty old editor in the John Ford western The man who shot Liberty Valence. To a historian it may seem that this is the guiding principle behind the celebrations of the Titanic, history’s most successful disaster. The outline of its story … Read more
May 2 1982 The Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine Conqueror some 30 miles outside the 200-mile ‘exclusion zone’ that Britain had declared around the Falkland Islands. Some 260 crewmen perished. 7 1812 Robert Browning, English poet and playwright, born in Camberwell, London. 8 1987 Eight … Read more
Across 1 North Italian monastery founded by Columbanus in AD 614 (6). 5 English hospital notorious for the ill-treatment meted out to the mentally ill in the eighteenth century (6). 10 This bay was the location of the Sea Horse tragedy in 1816 (7). 11 Site of modernised Norman castle in County Meath associated with … Read more
In a debate in the late eighteenth century in the Irish House of Commons on the vote of a grant, which was recommended by the chancellor of the exchequer as one not likely to be felt burdensome for many years to come, opponents argued that the House had no right to load posterity with a … Read more