Jettisoning faith, culture and identity to serve the Crown: Elizabethan grant of land and title to Florence Fitzpatrick, 3rd baron of Upper Ossory, 1581

Painstakingly hand-painted on almost three square metres of vellum, the Fitzpatrick manuscript is written in Latin and decorated with ornate depictions of English fruits, flowers, insects and woodland creatures, redolent […]

Lough Cutra castle, Co. Galway

Designed by the English architect John Nash (1752–1835) for Colonel Charles Vereker, 2nd Viscount Gort, Lough Cutra Castle is located on the banks of Lough Cutra. Nash had many well-known […]

The battle of the Swilly (Farsetmore), 8 May 1567

The Swilly estuary’s physical dynamic, coupled with its terrain characteristics and tidal water, creates a formidable tactical and strategic obstacle. This would be an important but underestimated element of O’Donnell’s […]

Skulls for sale: English conquest and cannibal medicines

Picture this: you are approaching the rudimentary home of a soldier one evening as the dusk falls. Squinting through the uncertain light, you wonder for a moment why a man […]

On this day

March 14 1991 The Birmingham Six—John Walker, Paddy Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter and Billy Power—were released after serving sixteen years in prison on fabricated evidence for the […]