Throughout the nineteenth century the west of Ireland experienced frequent subsistence crises and famines, as the region’s resources were incapable of supporting its large population. During the Great Famine the contributions of private charities such as the Society of Friends played a major role in alleviating the distress in areas such as Letterfrack and the … Read more
The correlation between the growth of the Southern cotton industry in the nineteenth century and the slave population is unmistakable: in 1790 Southern plantations produced only 70,000 bales of raw cotton; by 1860 that had risen to over four million. Similarly, the number of slaves rose from 700,000 to over four million in the same … Read more
A year after the failure of his July 1848 rebellion in Tipperary, William Smith O’Brien found himself in a small cottage, isolated from other convicts, on Maria Island, Van Diemen’s Land. He now had the leisure to write a long-postponed autobiography, which has recently been discovered. Family background Proud of his descent from the great … Read more
In the nineteenth century, Katherine Fitzgerald, the ‘Old’ Countess of Desmond, was one of the most familiar characters from early modern Ireland. Her story was romantic and remarkable. Assumed to have been born in the 1460s, in Dromana, Co. Waterford, she had, so legend went, married in Edward IV’s reign, and had even danced at … Read more
Despite more than a century of scholarly research, we know remarkably little about the circumstances in which the Book of Kells was made. While it is now clear that at least four scribe-artists were involved, their identities remain a mystery, as do their status and the nature of their training. Likewise unknown is the identity … Read more