By William Ward In considering its historical effects, the original nature of a text is at times immaterial. That the Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis, the early medieval tale of St Brendan’s voyage, ‘is not an AAA triptik to the New World’, as the Connecticut schoolteacher and scholar John D. Anderson put it in 1988, has … Read more
An analysis of the 1833 tithe records of Derrygrath, Co. Tipperary. By John Keating The tithe records for the civil parish of Derrygrath, South Tipperary, account for 3,713 of the 3,777-acre map area (cottages on under one acre are not recorded). The records were compiled in 1833 and include details on the size and cropping … Read more
By Colum Kenny In a small village in the Pyrenees they handed me a faded manuscript. The French owners of the house at Gouaux (as high as the top of Ireland’s highest mountain) had found it among papers in their library. Unfolding it gingerly, I saw first the signature of Richard Nagle, attorney-general of Ireland … Read more
West Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth By Aisling Durkan Little is known about the early life of Alderman James Barlow (d. 1759), who left a very fine legacy in Drogheda in the form of an elegant red-brick-fronted townhouse in West Street. How he made his fortune is uncertain but he must have accumulated considerable wealth, as … Read more
By Amy L. Harris Thomas Dingley (Dineley), an English antiquarian, visited Ireland in 1680–1. In his journal he recorded Swift Nicks (Nix) as one of eight army captains whom he met in Limerick. A literature search finds ‘Swift Nicks/Nix’ classed as a nickname associated with the English highwayman John Nevison, who lived in the latter … Read more