The Ireland in which Alexius Stafford was born and reared, in the mid-1600s, was a troubled land. The great rebellion of 1641 had been followed by the advent of Oliver Cromwell and his subsequent land confiscations and plantations in the early 1650s. Battles, sieges, despoliation and depression had ravaged town and country. By 1688-89, there … Read more
In 1585 the English privy council branded Richard Creagh ‘a dangerous man to be among the Irish for the reverence that is by that nation borne unto him’, and ordered that he should be detained in the Tower of London. The eighteen-year incarceration of the Archbishop of Armagh in London and Dublin was acutely embarrassing … Read more
When Pope John Paul II made his famous visit to Ireland in 1979, it must have looked to the outside world as if the words ‘Irish’ and ‘Catholic’ still belonged easily together, as they had for centuries. Semper fidelis was the phrase confidently pronounced by the pope just before he departed from Shannon airport. As … Read more
The history of private libraries in Ireland in the twentieth century tends to be a sad chronicle of loss and destruction; either by fires in turbulent times or, the auctioneer’s hammer in times of economic hardship. An exception was the unexpected arrival in 1950 of the American mining millionaire, Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) and his … Read more
Dracula! The very name conjures up visions of mist-shrouded ruined castles in the mountains of Transylvania and of superstitious peasants huddled together in some Moldavian village inn. Forget all that—Dracula might be closer than you think! In fact, the true home of the vampire count might more correctly lie in Ireland! Leacht Abhartach In the … Read more