The contents of www.ainm.ie are based on the nine-volume series Beathaisnéis by Diarmuid Breathnach and Máire Ní Mhurchú (1986–2007). It is a valuable research tool comprising almost 1,700 biographies dating from 1560 to the present day. Each of the featured lives has made a unique contribution to the Irish language over the last five centuries. … Read more
Cork was the first of Ireland’s cities to adopt the Public Libraries Act in the mid-nineteenth century. The city’s main library was housed in a variety of locations between 1892 and 1930, but when Corkonians think of the ‘City Library’ they think of the landmark building on the Grand Parade, opened in September 1930. The … Read more
Initial disbelief turned to anger as details of the massacre in Derry reached southern homes by teatime on Sunday 30 January 1972. Along with descriptions of what had happened, news bulletins also carried a call from Derry’s James Connolly Republican Club that those angered by ‘the murder tactics of the British Army’ should ‘go on … Read more
The War of Independence in the northern counties would have an additional dimension to that in the rest of the island. Unionists had armed themselves in 1913 as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to resist Home Rule ‘by all means’, and by 1920 had reorganised to combat increasing attacks by the IRA. UVF units were … Read more
During the First World War Germany attempted to use Irish resistance to British rule to open another front, both by recruiting captured Irishmen and by providing arms to the Irish Volunteers. In October 1914 Sir Roger Casement, a distinguished diplomat in the British service who had recently taken up the Irish cause, travelled to Berlin. … Read more