A little-noticed map made 200 years ago provides the first detailed representation of the parkland around one of Ireland’s most elaborate ‘big houses’, the recently restored mansion at Ballyfin, Co. Laois. To be found in a volume of richly coloured estate maps now preserved in the Delany Archive in Carlow College, a map (below) depicting … Read more
What was the composition of the first supreme council elected in June 1642 prior to the first formal meeting of the Association of Confederate Catholics of Ireland the following October, a list that until now has remained elusive? The outbreak of rebellion in Ulster in October 1641 initiated a period of political turmoil that spread … Read more
Adomnán, the ninth abbot of Iona, is well known for his biography of St Columba. A lesser-known achievement was the promulgation in 697 of Cáin Adomnáin, the ‘Law of the Innocents’, Lex Innocentium. In the ninth-century Martyrology of Tallaght, Féilire Óengusso, the entry for 23 September reads: Do Adamnán Iae Asa tóidlech tóiden Ro ír … Read more
Sir,—May I commend Brian Hanley for his review of John M. Regan’s Myth and the Irish state that brought to wider notice some of the current debates in modern Irish history (HI 22.5, Sept./Oct. 2014). Prof Regan is one of the most incisive minds working on modern Ireland today. The issues he raises about the … Read more
Sir,—In his response to my earlier observations D.R. O’Connor Lysaght makes some fair points (HI 22.6, Nov./Dec. 2014, Letters). It would be foolish to pretend that Germany was solely responsible for the Great War, and the argument that the Reich was striking a pre-emptive blow in 1914 is not entirely implausible. The September Programme, however, … Read more