By Myles Mac Evilly That a landing of National Army troops at Westport was a possibility was considered by Tommie Heavey, formerly of the West Mayo Brigade but now in Castlebar Barracks with Michael Kilroy in July 1922 at the start of the Civil War. He stated that Michael Kilroy, who was always interested in … Read more
By Fiona Fitzsimons After 1536 the Church of Ireland, as the established church, was responsible for burying all the dead of the community. Most parishes kept only a record of their own faith community. Notable exceptions were St James’s CoI (Dublin) and St Flannan’s CoI Cathedral graveyard, Killaloe (Clare). Some faiths only buried their own … Read more
By Nicholas Rossiter In 1902 people learned about the outside world through newspapers and periodicals. Lighting in the home, outside large urban areas, was by candle, oil-lamp or gas mantle. The reading material was very much text-laden, with few illustrations other than line-drawings. Since the introduction of National Schools in 1831 there had been a … Read more
By Martin Greene In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the leader of the group of vampire-hunters, Van Helsing, is qualified to play this role because he can call on the expertise of his ‘friend Arminius of Buda-Pesth’. The real-life Arminius Vambéry was a professor of oriental languages at the University of Pest and a celebrated explorer of … Read more
By Ian Miller In 1872, an alarmed lady wrote to the Freeman’s Journal to report that: ‘Taking shelter in a cottage, near Banbridge, County Down, some time ago, during a shower of rain, and noticing the teapot on the hob, I observed that tea stewed in that way did a great deal of harm. The … Read more