By James Quinn When in 1950 and 1952 the Yugoslav FA offered to bring its highly rated football team to Dublin, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) showed an uncharacteristic reluctance to accept. Normally the FAI took up such invitations with alacrity. International matches were its main source of income and prestige and were hard … Read more
By Brian Hopkins and Peter McClintock On the cusp of 1940, Ireland was suffering from economic hardship, especially evident in the tenements of the urban poor in Dublin and Cork. Moreover, living in overcrowded conditions, the poor were confronted by a return of such spectres of the 1840s as typhus and malnutrition. Having engaged in … Read more
By Damian Murphy Having inherited a plot of ground on the Mardyke in the western suburbs of Cork from her father, Samuel Thomas, Anne Buckley and her building contractor husband, Cornelius, established a trust in 1927 to develop the site speculatively as a gated estate, the immediate rush of profits from sales to be followed … Read more
By Mark McLaughlin The ending of the Irish Civil War with the order to ‘dump arms’ in May 1923 allowed the new National Army of the Irish Free State to concentrate on the creation of a professional army capable of serving the needs of the new state. An army of 7,000 had expanded during the … Read more
By Oliver Doyle Croagh Patrick, a 2,510ft-high conical mountain 9.5km from Westport, has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. During the Celtic Revival in the early 1900s, the annual pilgrimage to the summit was reintroduced; Mass would be celebrated there, and sermons given in both English and Irish, as many of those attending did … Read more