Sale of the century:the £500 deal for Ireland’s gas and oil

In March 1958 an oil company was registered in Dublin with a view to securing exploration rights for the 27,000 square miles of the Irish Republic. The principal shareholders were […]

Avoca copper mines

One of the first companies to take advantage of these new policies was International Mogul Mines of Canada, which expressed interest in the copper reserves of Avoca, Co. Wicklow. The […]

The FCA, 1946–2005

The Forsa Cosanta Aitiuil came into being on 6 February 1946 with the demise of its predecessor, the Local Defence Force (LDF). The LDF had been formed in 1941 as […]

FCA armoured cars

The first armoured cars issued to the FCA (in 1948) were Irish-built Ford Mark VIs, of  same type deployed to the Congo in 1960. After 1959 the three FCA motor […]

Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution

Liam Mellows’s political beliefs have been largely overlooked owing to the paucity of his surviving writings and the fundamentally awkward questions that his life—or, more precisely, his death—presents for both […]