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Login here: History Ireland: the page turner
On this day
Editor’s recommendation
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The tensions existing between what historians call ‘the two histories’.
Dr Regan and Mr Snide
The Earliest World Maps Known in Ireland (1:1)
An overwhelming wave, broken-topped, hoarsely rumbling, virulent in destructiveness, scorching terribly and giving off lively sparks; an earnest of enduring malice and ill-will, breaking down all embankments, all hills and every hoary rock ... a thick billowed deep thundering flood, covered our Ireland’s surface.
Irish history without a Catholic question might seem as improbable as Irish history without the potato: all Irish history, at least from 1550 onward, can be regarded as an extended comment on the Catholic question. None the less, to contemporaries, British and Irish, the term the Catholic question had a precise meaning: it signified the issue of the re-admission of Catholics to full civil, religious and political equality in both Britain and Ireland and it denoted the timing - at what point could such concessions with safety be made - it denoted the terms - with what safeguards could such concessions be made - and it denoted the sponsorship - under whose auspices should these concessions be made. But behind the public face of the Catholic question lurked its hidden face - a complex matrix of political calculation, strategic consideration and military necessity: it may be that most interest attaches to precisely these aspects of the Catholic question.
In 1810 the Cork agriculturist Horatio Townsend noted that Irish potatoes were ‘pleasant, mealy, and nourishing’ compared to the ‘watery and ill-flavoured’ varieties prevalent in England. Potato quality declined in Ireland thereafter, however, and on the eve of the Famine the very poor were often forced to rely almost exclusively on inferior varieties, notably the Lumper.
On the morning of 14 May 1841, a crowd of 50,000 gathered at Bishopbriggs Cross, north-west of Glasgow, to witness the execution of two Irish navvies convicted of the murder of an English ganger.
Why is hurling currently popular in a compact region centred on east Munster and south Leinster, and in isolated pockets in the Glens of Antrim and in the Ards peninsula of County Down? The answer lies in an exploration of the interplay between culture, politics and environment over a long period of time.
One central episode in the Unionist campaign of 1912-14 illustrates the strategic dilemma faced by the leaders of the movement and the success with which setbacks and complexities were concealed.
To counter the spread of venereal diseases, the first of three Contagious Diseases Acts (CDAs) was introduced in 1864, which permitted the compulsory inspection of prostitutes for venereal disease in certain military camps in both England and Ireland.
The documentary evidence in PRONI reflects the European context of the war in Ireland
The Williamite war was fought out in Ireland from 1689 to 1691 in a series of pitched battles, sieges and other military operations by two regularly organised armies, commanded by generals of international repute. This was warfare on a European scale and it represented a major crisis in Irish history.
Belfast’s historic Linen Hall Library houses a collection of 50,000 items of printed material about the current Northern Ireland troubles and is in constant consultation
Dr Brendan Bradshaw of Queen's College, Cambridge, has become notable in recent years for his controversial critique of current Irish historical scholarship.
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