ASKED TO NAME A FEMALE IRISH INTERNATIONAL SPORTS STAR, INDIVIDUALS SUCH AS THE ATHLETICS ALL-ROUNDER MARY PETERS, THE ATHLETE SONIA O’SULLIVAN, THE SWIMMER MICHELLE SMITH DE BRUIN OR THE BOXER KATIE TAYLOR WOULD SPRING TO MIND. FEW WOULD HAVE HEARD OF CECILIA BETHAM. By Brian Griffin For a number of years in the 1860s, Cecilia … Read more
A BANQUET THAT TOOK PLACE IN PARIS IN NOVEMBER 1792, CONCEIVED AS BOTH A PUBLIC CELEBRATION AND AS A SECRET EVENT, SHEDS LIGHT ON THE LITTLE-KNOWN ORIGINS OF IRISH REPUBLICANISM AND ON THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS OF SOME OF THE (FUTURE) UNITED IRISHMEN By Mathieu Ferradou On 18 November 1792, about 100 guests or convives gathered … Read more
By William Cumming Kilmainham Gaol is significant as the site of the executions of the 1916 leaders and of the imprisonment of many of those involved in the major struggles for independence or reform during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But it is often forgotten that the prison was built, and primarily served, as … Read more
ON 9 NOVEMBER 1620 MEMBERS OF THE SPANISH DIPLOMATIC DELEGATION TO LONDON DID SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO TWO PAINTINGS (ONE OF THE BATTLE OF KINSALE) DEPICTING ENGLISH MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC TRIUMPHS IN THE LONG GALLERY AT WHITEHALL PALACE. WHAT WAS BEHIND THIS EXTRAORDINARY INCIDENT? By Hiram Morgan There are confused reports about what exactly happened in … Read more
HOW WOULD MEDIEVAL PILGRIMS RETURNING FROM SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA TO WATERFORD HARBOUR HAVE TRAVELLED HOME TO DUBLIN? By Damien McLellan Every year for the past fifteen years I have walked one of the many medieval pilgrim roads in France and Spain that lead to Santiago de Compostela in the far north-western corner of Spain. I … Read more