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From Baltimore to Barbary: the 1631 sack of Baltimore

From Baltimore to Barbary: the 1631 sack of Baltimore



In the early hours of the morning of 20 June 1631, a ship’s boat, with a crew of captain, ten sailors and guide, its oars wrapped in oakum to dull the sound, rowed ashore at Baltimore, Co. Cork. The purpose of this clandestine journey was to scout the layout and defensive strength of the small coastal community. By the following day 107 captives had been seized, destined to be sold as slaves in Algeria. Theresa Denise Murray outlines the background and outcome of the sack of Baltimore.
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Alice Stopford Green and the origins of the African Society
Alice Stopford Green and the origins of the African Society

Best known as the wife of leading English historian J. R. Green and as a historian in her own right for The making of Ireland and its undoing 1200–1600 (1908), a provocative, nationalist reading of Irish history, Alice Stopford Green was also one of the founders of the African Society and editor of its journal. Angus Mitchell rescues her from the ‘silence and neglect’ that she had so persistently railed against in her own writing of women’s history.

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The birth of a mission
The birth of a mission

Much of the complex history of Irish missionary activity lies unexamined by historians and unknown to the wider public. With the decline of most Irish-based religious orders, the distinctive history of particular orders, their origins and their founders, has become occluded. Mary Dempsey traces the genesis of the Medical Missionaries of Mary and outlines the early career of their founder, Mary Martin.

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Seá¡n MacBride and Namibia
Seá¡n MacBride and Namibia

On 20 March 1990 Namibia achieved its long-awaited independence. It had been a long, complicated and violent struggle, which also involved a complex Irishman, Seán MacBride. Kim Wallis outlines the largely undisclosed story.

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An 'boks amach':* the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement
An 'boks amach':* the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement

Tom Lodge traces the history of the IAAM, from its first meeting in the living-room of Kader and Louise Asmal to the Dunnes Stores strike of the 1980s, its impact on the fall of apartheid and the emergence of a non-racial, democratic South Africa.

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From Ireland to Africa: a personal memoir
From Ireland to Africa: a personal memoir

The author and editor of numerous books on Africa, including Peasant consciousness and guerilla war in Zimbabwe and (with Eric Hobsbawm) The invention of tradition, Terence Ranger was founding professor of history in University College, Dar es Salaam; professor of social history in the University of Zimbabwe; and professor of race relations in the University of Oxford.

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‘The wind of change’: decolonisation in British West Africa
‘The wind of change’: decolonisation in British West Africa

Kevin O’Sullivan discusses the four-year period (1960–4) during which eight African states were granted independence from British rule.

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From Ireland to Africa: A personal memoir
From Ireland to Africa: A personal memoir

The author and editor of numerous books on Africa, including Peasant consciousness and guerilla war in Zimbabwe and (with Eric Hobsbawm) The invention of tradition, Terence Ranger was founding professor of history in University College, Dar es Salaam; professor of social history in the University of Zimbabwe; and professor of race relations in the University of Oxford.

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Casement’s maps of the Niger delta
Casement’s maps of the Niger delta

Relatively little is known about Roger Casement’s three years in the Niger Coast Protectorate (1892–5). Angus Mitchell analyses the few documents that have survived: a series of reports and maps describing short reconnaissance journeys into the hinterland around Old Calabar.

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