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
By Brian Hanley In April 1955 the artist Seán Keating presented a new work to Dublin’s Municipal (now Hugh Lane) Gallery. It was a portrait of an ‘Old’ IRA man who had played a leading role in the war against the British in Dublin between 1919 and 1921. Speaking at the unveiling, the man’s former … Read more
Sir,—Perhaps it will be beneficial to add the following to Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh’s excellent ‘“Years of storm and charm”—W.P. Ryan and the Irish Nation’ in the last issue (HI 31.4, July/August 2023). London’s Daily Herald, of which Ryan became its ‘first staffer’, had been launched with donations, including £300 from G. Bernard Shaw, himself a … Read more