The original ‘Tractor Boys’: when a factory team dominated Irish soccer

The popularity and success of Fordson FC signalled a shift in the place of soccer within Irish society. When the Ford Marina plant opened in Cork in 1917, those who […]

The revolutionary life and afterlife of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa

A life devoted to the cause of Irish freedom, and a most opportune death. In 1856 Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa began a revolutionary career that would span nearly 60 years when […]

‘A nation in its last moments’: William Godwin’s visit to Ireland, 1800

Godwin’s letters have left us an eyewitness account of aspects of Irish social and political life at a critical moment in the country’s history. In June 1800 the Irish ‘patriot’ […]

Edmund MacRichard Butler: books and warfare in fifteenth-century Ireland

Marginal notes on manuscripts shed light on the life of an Anglo-Norman lord and his relationship with his scribes. By Timothy O’Neill Night is falling on 21 December 1453, and […]

Exporting Magna Carta: exclusionary liberties in Ireland and the world

In a rush of commemorative activity this summer, we have been enjoined to recall that Magna Carta (‘the Great Charter’)—whose 800th anniversary fell in June 2015—announced a fundamental principle of […]