‘The Che Guevara of the IRA’: the legend of ‘Big Joe’ McCann

If, before the death of Bobby Sands in 1981, there was a name most likely to survive in the popular memory of ‘the Troubles’—to join the ranks of Kevin Barry […]

Ardnacrusha Generating Station, Co. Clare

The potential for harnessing power on the River Shannon had long been recognised, with plans dating back to an 1844 report published by Sir Robert Kane (1809–90), a Dublin-born chemist. […]

‘Unrelenting deference’? Official resistance to Catholic moral panic in the mid-twentieth century

The relationship between church and state went to the heart of Irish politics and society for much of the twentieth century and is obviously of central relevance to the history […]

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 […]