To find the title Hibernia im Ruhrgebiet (Ireland in the Ruhr) on a ninth-century map of ecclesiastical centres would cause little or no surprise. To find the title on a nineteenth-century map of successful mining enterprises is altogether more unexpected. In Britain and Industrial Europe 1750-1870 W.O. Henderson opens his chapter on the Ruhr with … Read more
By 1795, the United Irishmen’s hope of bringing about change in Ireland by peaceful means had been shattered once and for all. French assistance to an Irish independence movement seemed to be the only way out of the vicious circle of growing popular radicalisation and government counter measures. Revolutionary France had already developed into a … Read more
When the bankrupt dandy Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau arrived in 1828 more or less by coincidence, his mind was a clean slate with regard to Ireland. He was appalled by the squalor he saw. ‘The dirt, poverty and ragged dress of the common man’, he exclaimed, ‘is beyond belief!’ Of the city of Galway he … Read more
Major Henry McClintock’s Old Irish Dress (1943) has been an inspiration and a pleasure to many readers. In this and later editions he assembled many of the sources—written, pictorial and archaeological—relating to Irish costume from the earliest times. His labours have only recently been superseded by Mairead Dunlevy’s Dress in Ireland (1989). In McClintock’s enlarged … Read more
When Duke Heinrich II issued a charter for the newly founded Irish monastery in Vienna in the year 1161, he stipulated that, as far as its occupants were concerned, Irishmen only need apply! The new monastery was originally founded as one of the daughter houses of the important Irish Benedictine foundation dedicated to St James … Read more