By Fiona Fitzsimons After the 1641 Rebellion, the Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian Conquest, the Commonwealth was obliged to redeem debts owed to soldiers and adventurers with land in Ireland seized from Catholic rebels. The Civil Survey (1654– 6) was the first step in discovering and describing the forfeited lands. Local commissioners were appointed to … Read more
On the omission of Collins from Yeats’s poetic pantheon By Fionnbharr Rodger ‘When news came in of the death of Michael Collins, one of the ministers recited to the cabinet … the entire Adonais of Shelley’, wrote Yeats in a letter to Olivia Shakespear. What is remarkable about this line is that it is the … Read more
By Cameron C. Engelbrecht ‘If God does not want to, let the devil help me.’ These words are part of the confession of an anonymous noblewoman recorded in the Irish Jesuit mission’s annual letter of 1618, written to Fr Mutio Vitelleschi, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus. These annual letters informed the Superior … Read more
The materials of diplomacy between England and Gaelic Ireland in the later Middle Ages. By Elizabeth Biggs From 19 October 1394 until 1 May 1395, Richard II of England fought, negotiated and feasted his way from Waterford to Kilkenny, Dublin and Dundalk and back again. He was the first English king to visit the island … Read more