History was uncovered right on the doorstep of HI’s offices in South Earl Street, in Dublin’s Liberties, recently. A short ten-day archaeological dig in advance of redevelopment uncovered part of the southern precinct of Saint Thomas’s Abbey. The boundary in this area was formed by a ditch, almost two-and-a-half metres deep, which varied from seven … Read more
Peter Gray How far can the British government be held responsible for the Famine mortality of over one million in five years? What were the ideological motivations and constraints on ministers, and the effects of these on the formation of policy, particularly in the worst years of the Famine from mid-1846 to mid-1849? By ideology … Read more
E.M. Kirwan The most significant collection of images relating to Irish history is held by the National Library of Ireland, which houses millions of pictures, mostly prints. The Prints and Drawings Section alone houses at least 90,000 prints, drawings and water-colours and for the past five years an active programme to develop and properly exploit … Read more
Elected to the Senate two years ago for the National University, Professor Joe Lee of University College Cork is probably Ireland’s best known modern historian. Gráinne Henry caught up with him recently. GH: Tell us about your background. JL: I was born in Tralee, County Kerry, in 1942. I spent my first nine years in … Read more
Tony Varley and Peter Moser The absence of a strong tradition of farmer parties in a country with a very substantial proportion of the workforce engaged in agriculture has long been a source of puzzlement to students of twentieth-century Irish politics. Those farmers’ parties that have appeared in independent Ireland have never threatened to become … Read more