Alexius Stafford

The Ireland in which Alexius Stafford was born and reared, in the mid-1600s, was a troubled land. The great rebellion of 1641 had been followed by the advent of Oliver […]

“A dangerous man to be among the Irish”

In 1585 the English privy council branded Richard Creagh ‘a dangerous man to be among the Irish for the reverence that is by that nation borne unto him’, and ordered […]

A Church in Crisis

When Pope John Paul II made his famous visit to Ireland in 1979, it must have looked to the outside world as if the words ‘Irish’ and ‘Catholic’ still belonged […]

‘It was all a great adventure’…Alfred Chester Beatty & the formation of his library

The history of private libraries in Ireland in the twentieth century tends to be a sad chronicle of loss and destruction; either by fires in turbulent times or, the auctioneer’s […]

Was Dracula an Irishman?

Dracula! The very name conjures up visions of mist-shrouded ruined castles in the mountains of Transylvania and of superstitious peasants huddled together in some Moldavian village inn. Forget all that—Dracula […]