William Lee was fifteen years of age when he joined the Liverpool postal service as a telegraphist, rising through the ranks of the department to become its chief superintendent. He also dedicated himself to academic study and natural history research, and by 1902 he had achieved a BA. He followed that up with an MA … Read more
Doctus in se semper divitas habet. (School motto: ‘The learned man always has riches within himself’.) By Michael Quinn Charles Desmond Greaves, the historian, poet, scientist, philosophical thinker and political activist who dedicated the greater part of his life to Irish affairs, was born in 1913 in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula, across the … Read more
By Chris Colvin and Eoin McLaughlin The year 2020 witnessed the first major global pandemic in over a century. Policy-makers and analysts around the world scrambled to find meaningful historical analogies to comprehend the scale of devastation unleashed by Covid-19. Spurred by the freshness of a wide array of centenary studies published in both popular … Read more
By Lar Joye The Irish War of Independence was the first time that guerrilla fighters attacked trucks and cars, which were becoming more common on Irish roads. After an initial campaign against RIC barracks in 1920, more and more IRA attacks occurred on roads. In this they were greatly helped by the Irish munitions strike … Read more
By Cian Manning On 14 February 1875 the wealthy couple Francis and Mary Shortis, of 31 The Mall, Waterford, became the parents of Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis, known as Valentine to distinguish him from his father. The elder Shortis was a native of Clonmel and had become a prominent figure in Waterford city as a … Read more