By Paul Hughes From the meadows of the midlands to the corridors of Westminster, and from the gridded streets of Chicago to the Argentine pampas, few prominent figures of the Irish revolution enjoyed a reputation as in equal parts local, national and global as Laurence Ginnell, who died 100 years ago in April 1923. Born … Read more
By David Joyce ‘Travelling community’ is used as an all-encompassing term in Ireland to describe a traditionally nomadic community that has a significant degree of internal diversity. Encompassed within the term are distinct groups, namely Mincéirí or Pavee and Romani travellers. Mincéirí or Pavee are used interchangeably as a self-descriptive term by Irish Travellers; Romany/Romani … Read more
By Damian Murphy Erasmus Smith (1611–91) was granted extensive lands under the Settlement of Ireland Act of 1652 as repayment for his support for the suppression of the 1641 Rebellion, and he proposed in December 1655 that some of the profits from those lands be used to endow ‘five school-houses for the teaching of grammar … Read more
By Michael Gibbons The recently published Coastal atlas of Ireland suggests that the Lisbon earthquake and subsequent tsunami on All Saints’ Day, 1 November 1755, caused significant changes to the shape and geomorphology of many south-western areas of the Irish coast, including at Rosscarbery, Owenahincha, Longstrand, Kinsale Harbour, Cape Clear Island and the neighbouring areas … Read more
By Martin Green In Finnegans Wake, the main ingredient in Shaun’s ‘stockpot dinner’ is a ‘round steak, very rare, Blong’s best from Portarlington’s Butchery’. The reference is to a butchery operated by a Blong family at the Huguenot settlement in Portarlington in the early 1700s; the Blongs were among the Huguenots (French Protestants) admitted to … Read more