Japan has always been seen as an inscrutable nation. More so than the Chinese, Vietnamese or Korean people, the Japanese have maintained a reputation for being insular, self-contained and private. This inscrutability is visible in their language, culture and mannerisms, but it was never as clear as during the period of Sakoku (‘chained country’). Sakoku … Read more
In the mid-nineteenth century, shows featuring people with unusual physical attributes or abilities peaked in terms of commercial success. Favourite exhibitions included mermaids, Siamese twins, bearded ladies, giants and dwarves. One of the most popular was ‘General Tom Thumb’, so named because of his diminutive stature. Managed by the flamboyant Phineas Taylor Barnum, he achieved … Read more
Outside of Wexford, Carlow was one of the biggest centres of rebel activity in Leinster in 1798, and tales of the rebellion and its suppression at a local level are still emerging. The story of Revd Robert Rochfort (1775–1811) of Clogrennane, Co. Carlow, is a case in point. An investigation into his life and early … Read more
Eoin MacNeill (1867–1945) was above all a scholar, a historian of early and medieval Ireland, and an Irish linguist. His call for Irish nationalists to establish a militia in imitation of the Ulster Volunteers (in his article ‘The North began’), and his subsequent command of the Irish Volunteers, was what propelled him into a leadership … Read more
In November 1897 the editor of the Irish Wheelman, J.C. Percy, surveying recent developments in the cycling trade in Ireland, declared that ‘Cycling has now found its level, which happily is a very high one. It is no longer a fad or a fancy, but an established factor in modern everyday life… The army of … Read more