Not many leaders of armed rebellions in Ireland during the centuries of English rule had the opportunity to mull over their actions in later days. One who did was William Smith O’Brien, leader of the abortive Young Ireland rebellion of 1848, who spent five years, most of them on ticket-of-leave, in what was then Van … Read more
The Paris revolution of February 1848 raised unrealistic expectations in famine-ravaged Ireland. The sudden collapse of established regimes across Europe gave new hope to a divided and dispirited Repeal movement. Irish nationalists were led to believe that the Union could be repealed with similar ease. The romantic nationalists of Young Ireland were particularly heartened by … Read more
In October 1996 the foundations of what is thought to have been the thirteenth-century Augustinian priory of St Mary were located during building work for a new shopping-centre at Mullingar, County Westmeath. During the archaeological rescue excavation under the direction of Michael Gibbons, more than thirty burials were discovered, two of which contained scallop shells, … Read more
With the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854 a requirement for additional training areas for the British Army was recognised as an urgent necessity by the government in London. Early in the following year it was announced that camps would be established at Aldershot in Hampshire and on the Curragh of Kildare. Tradition of … Read more
In some humble céili house in the west of Ireland long ago the musician put his fiddle down to give the dancers a rest. It was time for the ‘singer of the household’ to take the floor, drawing from oral tradition sustained down the centuries in elemental form by echoes of ancestral voices. An itinerant … Read more