Oliver Cromwell spent only nine months in Ireland but few men’s footprints have been so deeply imprinted upon Irish history and historiography. This theme was explored by a number of invited lecturers at the fifth annual symposium of the Old Drogheda Society on 12 September 1999 in the Boyne Valley Hotel. The chairman of the … Read more
On 19 May 1999 Seamus Hosey (RTÉ) unveiled a monument, designed and sculpted by Anna Bland, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the battle of the Pass of the Plumes (Cashel Cross, County Laois), when an English force under Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, was ambushed and defeated by Owny MacRory O’More. Local historian George … Read more
He started life as an illiterate barrow-boy and died a viscount, having taken three wives on the way. This is the incredible story of Matthew Barnewall. ‘Never without an idiot or a lawsuit’ The Barnewalls were Normans, and took their name from the small sea-side town of Berneval le Grand sur Mer, a little way … Read more
It has long been known that a valuable collection of untraced Fitzgerald material existed. Thomas Moore had access to it for his 1831 biography of Lord Edward and it was also drawn on by Gerald Campbell for his biography of Edward and Pamela in 1904. It had been assumed that these papers had been destroyed, … Read more
TC: Could you tell us something about your background? MH: I did my degree in history at the University of Bristol and got my first job as a research assistant in the Imperial War Museum. Military history had been a speciality of mine. From the Imperial War Museum I moved to the Horniman and eventually … Read more