‘Informer! A horror to be understood fully only by the Irish mind . . . Good God! An informer is the great danger’. (Liam O’Flaherty, The Informer) Probably one of the most notorious informers in Irish history was Leonard MacNally, and he is unusual in that his role was not exposed during his life and … Read more
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was a private institution. The Catholic clergy had pastoral duties towards their community but no civil responsibility. From the late eighteenth century, Catholic religious orders involved themselves more in education and welfare, founding specifically Catholic schools and institutions (reformatories, industrial schools, orphanages, asylums and refuges). The basic administrative unit … Read more
Richard Boyle was one of the most significant and controversial characters in early modern Ireland. An archetypal English adventurer, by his own account he was variously an earnest royal official who rose through the ranks to reach the very top of government through sheer ability; a successful entrepreneur and industrialist; a great landowner, having acquired … Read more
At the beginning of the 1590s Ireland stood on the brink of a new era that would forever alter the economic, cultural and social characteristics of its people. The catalyst for these changes was the Nine Years War (1595–1603). In this period Gaelic military power reached its zenith, but it perversely ended with the completion … Read more