Sir,—Jim Smyth in his article ‘Wolfe Tone today’ (HI 32.1, Jan./Feb. 2024, pp 14–15) is less than fair to Patrick Pearse. It is contended that his famous 1913 Bodenstown oration tells us more about Pearse than about Tone. A reading of the speech shows otherwise. Pearse spends much of it praising the character of Tone, … Read more
Sir,—Aodhán Crealey’s concise biographical piece about Tyrone-born John King (HI 32.1, Jan./Feb. 2024, ‘On this day’) is an apt tribute to the sole survivor of the 1860–1 well-equipped but badly led first European expedition to cross Australia from south to north. King was then a 20-year-old camel driver. Readers may be interested in two recent … Read more
BY DONAL FALLON IRELAND THEN AND NOW An excellent contribution to the rte.ie/history website, ‘Ireland Then and Now’, is an ongoing project from photographer and artist David Cleary. In an interactive series, Cleary takes images from the archives and superimposes them on the exact location today, allowing us to pull the historic image across the … Read more
MAY 08/1987 The Loughgall ambush. Eight members of the East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA, including their commander, Patrick Joseph Kelly, were killed by the SAS/RUC as they attacked the part-manned RUC station in north Armagh. The East Tyrone Brigade was one of the most active and successful IRA brigades during the Troubles, with a … Read more
By Elizabethanne Boran This year witnesses two important anniversaries: the 1,500th anniversary of the death of St Brigid and the 1,010th anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf. The current exhibition at the Edward Worth Library, located in Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin 8, marks these two events with a small exhibition on the theme ‘Early Medieval … Read more