Irishmen in the Confederate Army

The National Museum of Ireland’s permanent exhibition Soldiers and Chiefs: The Irish at War at Home and Abroad from 1550 has a large collection of loans from museums around the […]

‘A river to hell’: working on Ireland’s inland waterways

From its inception the story of Irish canals was laden with tragedy. Men close to starvation laboured for a few pence a day to dig them, and barge masters sailed […]

Telling tales: the story of the burial alive and drowning of a Clare RM in 1920

On the morning of 22 September 1920, four volunteers from the IRA’s West Clare brigade gathered at a level crossing at Caherfeenick, near Doonbeg. Presently, they heard an approaching Ford […]

Imperial Germany and Irish-American contacts, 1900–17

In 1892 France signed a military convention with Russia: in the event of war, the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, would have to fight on two fronts. As for the […]

Joyce’s looking-glass: the dark side of Irish childhood in creative fiction

The institutional brutality, neglect and sexual abuse of children catalogued in the Murphy report, and its predessessors, Ryan and Ferns, concentrated on the later twentieth century. But did the Irish […]