By Peter Murray Ernest Kavanagh’s Irish Worker cartoon (below) depicts three figures—the lord mayor of Dublin, Lorcan Sherlock, on the right; Dublin’s town clerk, Henry Campbell, in the centre; and an official employed in the town clerk’s office, Stephen Hand. Two of the three—Sherlock and Campbell—are to be found in the Dictionary of Irish Biography; … Read more
By David Mould In July 1817 the Irish-born James Hastie, a 30-year-old East India Company sergeant, embarked on an ambitious and risky mission. From the east coast of Madagascar, he travelled by canoe and on foot to the central highlands. His destination: the court of the Ovah king, Radama, the most powerful clan chief on … Read more
By Mark B. Roe The records of the British and old Irish parliaments contain detailed evidence of one of Ireland’s earliest experiments in institutional child care: the Foundling Hospital. Annual admission figures are available for 82 out of the 100 years during which the hospital accepted admissions. From these we can calculate that approximately 127,000 … Read more
By Małgorzata Krasnodębska-D’Aughton and Richard Keyes McDonnell On 2 July 2021 a silver-gilt chalice was auctioned by Duke’s Auctioneers of Dorchester. The catalogue described the chalice as ‘an exceptionally rare Irish silver-gilt chalice, circa 1480’. Since its purchase, the chalice has featured in news articles and on television, particularly in the Catholic media in the … Read more
By Anna Rose Garvey Benjamin True Gault (1858–1942) was an American conservationist and ornithologist. On his travels to observe, record and film birds, he visited Cork and Kerry in 1925–6. During this period in Ireland he was able to capture many seabirds and wildlife, as well as the daily lives of the people of the … Read more