By Patricia Byrne On 1 April 1851 Edward Nangle, who had founded the Achill Mission colony in the early 1830s, publicly announced that the Mission had purchased the major part of the island from the Encumbered Estates Commissioner for £17,500. This put the Mission on a new trajectory as the major Achill landlord. The University … Read more
By John Rodden A once-famous and now all-too-forgotten episode in the annals of ‘sensational spats’ was the belligerent confrontation between the 60-year-old Daniel O’Connell, then near the height of his reputation and influence, and the brash, ambitious, 31-year-old Benjamin Disraeli, future Conservative prime minister of the United Kingdom. It was a historic encounter—indeed, it resulted … Read more
By John Bergin Catholics of the early modern era in Ireland and in England have often been considered as quite distinct and unconnected. In fact there were links, not least at the level of the landed gentry, who crossed the Irish Sea in both directions, settling, intermarrying and owning property in each other’s countries. The … Read more
Tower Hill, Portlaw, Co. Waterford By Damian Murphy The nineteenth-century fascination with Early Christian round towers prompted the repair of antiquities and the construction of facsimiles as monuments to Daniel O’Connell (1851–5) in Glasnevin and to the casualties of the Crimean War (1857–8) near Wexford. The revival of interest can be traced back to the … Read more
The misericords of St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick. By Charlotte Murphy St Mary’s Church of Ireland cathedral in Limerick possesses the only set of medieval choir-stalls to survive Ireland’s troubled past. Attached to the underside of these stalls—or misericords, as they are more usually known—are fascinating carvings. There are also bosses of a grotesque nature at … Read more