Field hockey has been played by women in Ireland for a little more than a century and a quarter. The Irish Ladies’ Hockey Union, instituted in 1894, was the first national organisation of the game in the world, and the first international match took place in Dublin two years later. By John Lucey The success … Read more
The chevalier brothers-in-law—Thomas O’Gorman, antiquary, genealogist and wine merchant, and Charles-Geneviève d’Éon de Beaumont, transgender diplomat and spy. By Seán O’Halloran The publication of a recently discovered copy of the manuscript of the genealogy of the house of O’Reilly by Clachan Publishing has drawn attention to its compiler, the largely forgotten eighteenth-century antiquary Chevalier Thomas … Read more
Ireland and the history of blasphemy. By David Nash For much of the twentieth century, western governments believed either that blasphemy laws were long-dead fragments of a bygone age or that they simply sat quietly and unnoticed in dust-laden legal volumes away from the public gaze. Events at the end of the twentieth century indicated … Read more
A journeyman sea captain made exceptional picture-charts of Irish harbours almost 400 years ago. By Arnold Horner A little-noticed survey of many of Ireland’s harbours, made in the 1630s, offers some unique views of Dublin (p. 27) and other harbours at the time when Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford, ruled as the king’s deputy. … Read more
A new calendar of documents, commissioned by the Irish Jesuits for the bicentenary of the order’s restoration in 1814. By Vera Moynes An anti-clerical edict proclaimed by the president and council of Munster on 18 August 1604 contained the following description: ‘[the] Jesuittes, Seminaries and massinge priestes have bene … so much harkned unto and … Read more