Land & Soil: a territorial rhetoric by Seamus Deane

There is a difference between the Irish battle for the land in the nineteenth century and the battle for the soil. Soil is what land becomes when it is ideologically […]

The Duel in Irish History by James Kelly

On 2 February 1773, four peers – Lord Townshend, the Earl of Bel/amont and their seconds Lords Ancram and Ligonier – assembled in Marylebone Fields on the outskirts of London […]

The Military Strategy of the Wexford United Irishmen in 1798

until recently historians of 1798 regarded the rebellion in Wexford as a spontaneous popular reaction to unwarranted government repression and not part of a larger United Irish conspiracy. Scanty references […]

The Sense of the Past by Seamus Heaney

Its former green is blue and thin,And its once firm legs sink in and in;Soon it will break down unaware,Soon it will break down unaware.At night when reddest flowers are […]

Making a Hole in the Moon: the rescue of Princess Clementina by Tony Canavan

On a cold April morning in 1719 a carriage containing an Irish lady and her maid, escorted by her husband and four companions, left the fortress city of Strasbourg to […]