By Anna Rose Garvey In this issue we take a closer look at four films that focus on acts of protest. The first example is the film Lord Mayor of Cork Dead (1920) from the Irish Independence Film Collection, a British Pathé newsreel documenting the funeral procession of Terence MacSwiney through London and his final … Read more
By Neasa MacErlean Robert Dudley Edwards is known as much for his eccentricity as for his work in professionalising the study of Irish history. Stories are still recounted about the famous Marathon exam that he instituted at UCD, the departmental meetings in Hartigan’s pub, his encounters with the Gardaí and cryptic comments delivered to startled … Read more
By Desmond Gibney This story begins with a photograph of a grave-marker bearing the name of RAF Sergeant P.B. McRann (below), found among the photos belonging to my late mother, Teresa Gibney (née McRann), over ten years ago. As the grave-marker had a number, 645384, a Google search revealed this to be the grave of … Read more
By James Bennett ‘There are more cricket clubs and unofficial “elevens” in Co. Dublin per square mile than in any other part of Ireland. This ancient game … is played enthusiastically on almost every village green.’ (Drogheda Independent, 19 September 1936) Sports historians and various commentators have provided many reasons for cricket’s decline from a … Read more
By Christopher S. Connelly Last year the Irish Film Institute Archive announced the discovery of footage of the (mostly) lost 1927 MGM silent film The Callahans and the Murphys (see IFI Film Eye in HI 32.4, July/Aug. 2024). Screenwriter Frances Marion’s adaptation of Kathleen Norris’s eponymous novel focused on duelling Irish-American matriarchs Annie Callahan (Marie … Read more