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Vol. 18 Issue 1 (January/February 2010)

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Cover Story

On the frontiers of European history

Steven Ellis ponders the implications for Irish history of the collaborative European CLIOHRES network.
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Featured Articles

Did St Brigid visit Glastonbury?
Did St Brigid visit Glastonbury? To great fanfare it was recently announced that U2 would headline at this year’s special 40th-anniversary Glastonbury rock festival. Brian Wright looks at the evidence for an earlier, and arguably more famous, Irish visitor one and a half millennia before. Read More >>

At Ó Néill’s right hand: Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire and the Red Hand of Ulster
At Ó Néill’s right hand: Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire and the Red Hand of Ulster Why did Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, archbishop of Tuam, whose family hailed from Roscommon, choose the Red Hand of Ulster as his coat of arms? Benjamin Hazard unravels the puzzle. Read More >>

What the witchcraft bishop did in Ireland: the controversial career of Francis Hutchinson, 1660–1739
What the witchcraft bishop did in Ireland: the controversial career of Francis Hutchinson, 1660–1739 Francis Hutchinson is best known for his opposition to witch-hunting in early eighteenth-century England. What is less well known is his subsequent career—outlined here by Andrew Sneddon—as Church of Ireland bishop of Down and Connor between 1721 and 1739. Read More >>

‘Reign of terror at Craughwell’: Tom Kenny and the McGoldrick murder of 1909

‘Reign of terror at Craughwell’: Tom Kenny and the McGoldrick murder of 1909

The village of Craughwell, Co. Galway, rarely went unmentioned in news reports of the recent serious flooding in the west and south of the country. It was in the news too a century ago, over the murder of an RIC constable. Fergus Campbell sketches the background to the bitter agrarian dispute that gave rise to it, the man behind the agitation and the conflict that smouldered on for years afterwards.

Joyce’s looking-glass: the dark side of Irish childhood in creative fiction
Joyce’s looking-glass: the dark side of Irish childhood in creative fiction Fergus Shanahan and Eamonn Quigley explore some eerily prescient themes in early twentieth-century literature. Read More >>

Imperial Germany and Irish-American contacts, 1900–17
Imperial Germany and Irish-American contacts, 1900–17 The cooperation between Roger Casement and the German authorities during the First World War is well documented. Less well known is the story of how the Germans used Irish republicans in Europe and especially in the United States for sabotage operations. Jérôme aan de Wiel reveals a web of intrigue. Read More >>

Telling tales: the story of the burial alive and drowning of a Clare RM in 1920
Telling tales: the story of the burial alive and drowning of a Clare RM in 1920 The recent discovery of a death certificate has challenged the veracity of a much-retold and embellished story of an IRA ‘atrocity’. Eoin Shanahan untangles fact from fiction. Read More >>

‘A river to hell’: working on Ireland’s inland waterways
‘A river to hell’: working on Ireland’s inland waterways Nowadays old canal barges conjure up images of nostalgia, and most that still ply our inland waterways have been converted to recreational uses. But, as John Rainsford explains, it was a different story for those who originally worked on them. Read More >>

Irishmen in the Confederate Army
Irishmen in the Confederate Army While the story of Irishmen in the Union Army during the American Civil War (1861–5) is well recognised, that of Irish soldiers in the Confederate Army is less well known. Lar Joye describes some items on loan to the National Museum from Tennessee State Museum. Read More >>

‘Unrelenting deference’? Official resistance to Catholic moral panic in the mid-twentieth century

‘Unrelenting deference’? Official resistance to Catholic moral panic in the mid-twentieth century

Following the publication of the Ferns Report into clerical child sex abuse in 2005, Progressive Democrats TD Liz O’Donnell observed that there had been, for many years, ‘unrelenting deference expected and given’ to the Catholic Church from the state. Few would disagree, especially in the light of the further revelations of the Ryan and Murphy reports in 2009. But was this always the case? Diarmaid Ferriter reveals a more complex relationship.