I have to admit that I felt apprehensive about visiting this museum. It was a bit like entering the lion’s den to go into the headquarters of one of the loyal orders. The big friendly posters outside did not help and the welcome from the porter was not exactly warm, although that may have been … Read more
Is Ireland traditionally associated with a particular mode of transport? Britain, after all, will always be associated with the seafaring prowess that laid the military and economic foundations for global dominance, and the very existence (not to mention influence) of the United States in its current form is inextricable from the development of the automobile. … Read more
As early as May 1975 the Irish Times noted that ‘many people seem to have forgotten that the bombings ever took place’. Over the years other atrocities, such as Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen and Omagh, have loomed far larger in the public imagination. Bombings carried out by the IRA, such as at Warrington in … Read more
Robert Owen’s visit to Ireland represented an important effort to attract government support for his ‘Village Scheme’ (see sidebar). A select committee would soon meet to investigate the prevailing distress, and Owen, hoping he might give evidence, as he had on child labour, set about familiarising himself with Ireland. From October 1822 to April 1823 … Read more
Robert Owen, having made a fortune as a mill manager in Manchester and from 1800 at New Lanark in Scotland, instituted workplace and community reforms, the basis for a wider social agenda. In 1812 he started work on his essays on A new view of society, designed to promote popular but secular education and to … Read more