Speaking in the Houses of Parliament in 1886 T.P. O’Connor, one of Parnell’s closest associates, forecast what Ireland would look like under Home Rule. He described ‘a nation of small farmers—one vast universal petite bourgeoisie’. In support of his characterisation he goes on to exhort his listeners to Go to the Royal Academy and look … Read more
We’ll fight to the last in the honest old cause, And guard our religion, our freedom and laws. We’ll fight for our country, our king and his crown, And make all the traitors and croppies lie down. As the television documentaries, radio programmes and newspaper features marking the bicentennary of the French revolution rolled on … Read more
The foundation of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, in 1795 represented a revolution in the history of Irish Catholicism. The penal era was drawing to a close, but the French Revolution and the loss of the continental colleges threatened the supply of priests to Ireland; of 478 seminary places in Europe before the revolution, ninety per … Read more
Aughrim need never have been fought. That it happened was due to the Frenchman Charles Chalmont, Marquis de Saint-Ruhe, generally referred to as Saint Ruth who assumed the post of Marshal-General of Ireland, in May 1691. Saint-Ruhe’s command was confined behind the Shannon to Connacht following the 1690 campaign in which William of Orange had … Read more
The early afternoon of Friday, 11 March 1597, was windy but dry in Dublin. The dryness of that springtime was a welcome relief from the succession of cold and wet seasons which had preceded it. At the Liffeyside along Wood Quay and Merchant’s Quay those who laboured at unloading the boats tied up at the … Read more