AB: What early influences contributed to your interest in history? JAM: Growing up in a strongly nationalist household in the 1930s, my first introduction to history was history as nationalism. Quite separately, however, there was a particularly inspiring teacher at primary school named Paddy Desmond who made the history of the locality come alive, for … Read more
In 1824, the British government decided to initiate a comprehensive series of six-inch maps of Ireland, the first of its kind. The project was entrusted to the British Board of Ordnance, a military body responsible for mapping, which authorised Col. Thomas Colby to supervise. Since the maps were to be based on townland divisions, Colby … Read more
At 9.40 am on Tuesday 26 August 1913 Dublin tram car men (drivers) and conductors pinned the Red Hand badge of the Irish Transport and General Workers‚ Union to their lapels and abandoned their vehicles. Within forty minutes most of the trams were moving again. The Dublin United Tramway Company chairman William Martin Murphy … Read more
When the body of James Power wasbrought ashore at Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony on 30 July 1883 thetown became the focus of world attention as never before or since; forJames Power turned out to be James Carey, the notorious assassin—turnedinformer—who had dominated the news since the beginning of the year. Carey hit the … Read more
Cé hí Charlotte Brooke? Bhí an-chlú uirthi agus í beo, agus fiú céad bliain ina dhiaidh sin. Ach tá dearmad déanta uirthi anois taobh amuigh de na hollscoileanna. Bhí páirt an-tábhachtach ag Charlotte i gcéad athbheochan na Gaeilge, mar d’fhoilsigh sí leabhar dar teideal Reliques of Irish Poetry i 1789. Bailiúchán dánta as Gaeilge atá … Read more