By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr Fasting as a means of coercion was an ancient tradition in Ireland. Irish nationalism renewed interest in the Gaelic past, and W.B. Yeats in The King’s Threshold dramatised the tradition of fasting. The significance of this cultural inheritance is unclear. What is certain is that Irish republicans borrowed the technique … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr During the Easter Rising, the 5th Battalion of the Irish Volunteers, under the command of Cmdt Thomas Ashe, carried out a series of raids and reconnaissance movements throughout north County Dublin from Easter Monday to Friday. (After the Rising, the unit became known as the ‘Fingal Brigade’ but was not … Read more
By Robert Delaney September 2025 marks 100 years since the Irish army first fired artillery in the Glen of Imaal. It was the beginning of the Artillery Corps’ long association with the Wicklow training ground, and it defined the Defence Forces’ approach to artillery exercises for decades to come. The Artillery Corps was established officially … Read more
By Christopher S. Connelly Last year the Irish Film Institute Archive announced the discovery of footage of the (mostly) lost 1927 MGM silent film The Callahans and the Murphys (see IFI Film Eye in HI 32.4, July/Aug. 2024). Screenwriter Frances Marion’s adaptation of Kathleen Norris’s eponymous novel focused on duelling Irish-American matriarchs Annie Callahan (Marie … Read more
By Mark Holan American photographer and antiquarian Wallace Nutting drove through all 32 counties of Ireland in the summer of 1925, taking some 700 images of the country. His travels resulted in the photobook Ireland beautiful, which was published in time for Christmas gift-giving. It featured 304 of Nutting’s half-tone engravings of Irish landscapes—only six … Read more