In 1782, the ruling Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland were given countrywide self-rule by the British Parliament, greatly increasing the powers of the Irish Parliament, situated at College Green in Dublin. One of the first items addressed by the new parliament was the Trade Agreement that restricted what…

The port of Brest in the mid-1790s by Jean-François Hue (1751-1823)

As he watched the small French fleet carrying his friend Theobald Wolfe Tone and about 3,000 French troops sail out of Brest, France on September 20,…

There’s many a lonely hearth-stone tonight in wide Mayo,

There’s many a gallant heart content again can never know

But darkest woe and grief for him the saintly true and tried,

Who on the Saxon scaffold that day for freedom died.

         --  From “The Priest of Addergool,” by William Rooney (Founder of…

On July 3, 1998, An Taoiseach Bertie Aherne, T.D., unveiled a plaque on The Kingsbridge Inn to commemorate the bicentenary of "The Races of Castlebar." This event, as well as the publication of Thomas Flanagan's “The Year of the French" in 1979 and the subsequent filming of this novel some years ago, have increased an…

National Library of Ireland. Gen. Richard Mulcahy in the uniform of the Irish Free State.

MÁIRT -- On Dec. 16, 1971, soldier and politician General Richard Mulcahy died in…

Linen Hall Library Lord Charles Cornwallis had already lost one colony, and his reputation wouldn't survive the loss of another.

LUAIN -- On September 8, 1798,…