BS: Could you explain the origins of your interest in history? JM: I would say that historians are born, not made. I did not become a historian for ideological or monetary reasons but rather because that was what I wanted to do. From an early age I was aware of a sense of the past … Read more
Strokestown Park House, one of Ireland’s finest Palladian mansions, and the last in County Roscommon to remain intact, has been the focus of much public attention as the site of Ireland’s first Famine Museum, which occupies its adjoining stable wing. The museum was opened by President Robinson in May 1994 (see HI Summer 1994), and … Read more
South by Maurice Phelan The new Junior Certificate syllabus, launched with much publicity a few years ago, was to herald a whole new approach to the teaching of history in the South. The emphasis was to be on sending pupils and teachers to the ‘sources’. There was to be a move away from the names, … Read more
One of the most carefully fostered aspects of the image of the Catholic priest is that he is without a wife. Indeed, this image has been built up by the church administration as an essential part of its own esprit de corps. In recent centuries, certainly since clerical problems in mid-eighteenth-century France, church authorities have … Read more
The 1889 Light Railway (Ireland) Act was the first to provide government grants for the construction of railways, which had previously been the domain of private enterprise. This and subsequent acts of 1890 and 1896 brought the railway to remote, thinly populated districts which were considered commercially non-viable by the railway companies. £1,553,967 was spent … Read more