Even today, over three hundred years since the death of the Duke of Ormond in 1688, the legacy of his viceroyalty is magnificently apparent in the capital city of Ireland. The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham, built in 1677 on Ormond’s orders, was constructed to house the pensioners of the long Irish wars. St Stephen’s Green, … Read more
It might be argued that the most significant thing about the Irish cultural response to the First World War is its comparative absence. Perhaps it is a case of ‘the dog that didn’t bark’, itself a noteworthy enough reaction to the cataclysmic European events of 1914-18. There is, for example, no extensive body of … Read more
It has been claimed that Molly Malone was a real person who lived in the late seventeenth century, and that records of her baptism in St Andrew’s Church and burial in St John’s Graveyard have been discovered. Accordingly, the Grafton Street statue of Molly is dressed in seventeenth- century style and is located around the … Read more
The electric telegraph was invented in 1837 and proved to be an instant success. It provided new possibilities for the rapid transmission of news and business information. International communications required the use of insulated electrical conductors and the first techniques for coating copper wires with a suitable material were patented by Siemens Brothers in Prussia. … Read more
On an October day in 1325, in the royal exchequer at Westminster, the accounts of the treasurer of Ireland were being audited. This was a fairly routine matter. The treasurer in question was Walter Islip, who had retired from office in September 1321. Suddenly the audit was interrupted when the routine inquiries began to reveal … Read more