Abolishing the Angelus on RTE is one of those perennials that pops up in the pre-occupations of Ireland’s dominant cultural class a few times a year. Sometimes it’s in silly season, when the press are looking for a story, but more commonly it’s when news stories about the nation’s past surface which tend to inflame […]
At some point in the 20th century history of Ireland, it was decided that the single worst thing you could be was an unmarried mother. It was so bad, in fact, that the words themselves were rarely spoken. Daughters – some of them still of childbearing age today – were warned not to “get into […]
Thomas Ashe trained as a teacher and worked as a school principal in Lusk, Co. Dublin. He was a poet, piper and talented singer and having being reared in the Gaeltacht in Kerry, was an avid supporter of the Irish language. This brought him to the governing body of the Gaelic League, he was also […]
William Higgins was born in Drumlish, the thirteenth and youngest child, of William and Elizabeth Higgins. Initially he was educated by his mother and that would form his early formation. The rising of 1798 was deeply impressed on the mind of the young boy. The Longford Leader’s article on the unveiling of a statue in […]
Daniel Breen – Dónall Ó Braoin – was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. He was born in Grange, Donohill parish, County Tipperary, his father died when Dan was six, leaving the family very poor. He was educated locally, before becoming a plasterer […]
Handel’s Messiah was the soundtrack to Christmas Day in our house. It was a bit, or more likely totally, above our heads but it gradually, over many years, soaked up the strangeness and wonder, the mysterious otherworldliness of Christmas. The smells and tastes, the treats, the novelties that the kindly Santa left for us on […]
Willie Clancy was born into a musical family in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare. His parents both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute. Clancy’s father had been heavily influenced by local blind piper Garret Barry. Willie started playing the whistle at age 5, and later took up the flute. He first […]
By this time, 1.5 years into the worst starvation Ireland had experienced in the 19th century, the death and destruction of famine was gaining international headlines. Accounts were so horrific that many thought they were exaggerated, alas, it was not the case. Several went themselves to establish the truth only to find it worse than […]
99 years ago the Government of Ireland Act passed through both houses of parliament in London. The Act divided Ireland into two territories, “Southern Ireland” and “Northern Ireland”, each intended to be self-governing. “Northern Ireland” as defined by the Act, amounting to six of the nine counties of Ulster, Down, Derry, Armagh, Antrim, Fermanagh and […]
A few days ago, the lower house of the Argentinian parliament voted to legalise abortion. While the legislation has yet to pass the Argentinian Senate (where the vote is expected to be on a knife edge), the celebrations from the pro-choice side were familiar, to anybody who lived through the Irish referendum of 2018: Cheers […]
ON THIS DAY: 12 DECEMBER 2001: Nuala O’Loan, Police Ombudsman for the North of Ireland presents report to relatives of the Omagh bombing victims As the Police Ombudsman for the North of Ireland, Nuala O’Loan met with and presented the relatives of the victims of the Omagh bombing with a report into her findings into […]
Saint Finnian of Clonard was a member of Clanna Rudhraighe from the Ulaid in the vicinity of New Ross. According to some sources, Finnian studied for a time at the monastic centre of Martin of Tours in Gaul. Tours was noted for its austerity. He later went to Wales and continued his studies at the […]