The de Freyne evictions, 1902 This week and celebrate St Patricks Day new titles were added to the Irish Newspaper Archive. These titles include Roscommon Champion 1944 – 2010; the Roscommon Journal 1828 – 1927; the Roscommon Messenger 1849 – 1935; the Strokestown Democrat 1913-1948, and the Roscommon & Leitrim Gazette 1822 – 1882. Such a focus on one Irish county allows readers to pour into the past in such det...

Ireland and the American Civil War In the course of his speech during the visit of Michael Martin, Taoiseach to the White House today, US President Donal Trump made reference to the Irish who fought in the American Civil War in the 1860s. Fleeing Ireland from the Great Famine in the 1840s thousands of irish settled in some of the USA’s biggest cities. When the War broke out in 1861 more than 200,000 Irishmen joined bo...

Have you ever heard the story of how an Austrian empress came to land in a county Kildare field in the late 1870s? Born in 1837 Elizabeth, but better known as ‘Sissi’ or ‘Sisi’, was the daughter of the duke of Bavaria and married the Austrian emperor, Franz Joseph. In the spring of 1880 ‘Sisi’ and her entourage were staying at Summerhill House in county Meath when during a hunt with the Meath Hunt, by accident, the...

Carton House for sale In the aftermath of Irish Independence many of Ireland’s great houses went into decline, dereliction and ruin. There are numerous reasons for this and although many survived the revolutionary period, their days were numbered. In the late 1940s the sale of Carton House in Maynooth signalled the end of the FitzGeralds in Kildare, a connection which had stretched all the way back to the 1180s. Today...

Elizabeth O’Farrell Saturday 8 March is international Womens Day. A day to celebrate all of the wonderful achievements of women, whether those close to you or those who have shaped society in the past or present. Thinking of influential names of Irish women of the past a number of names come to mind. But today I was wondering about Elizabeth O’Farrell, the nurse who accompanied Patrick Pearse in 1916 to the surrender wi...

Thomas Russell: the man from god knows where ‘Into our townland on a night of snow rode a man from god knows where’ are the opening ballad about the United Irish leader, Thomas Russell. Leader of the United Irishman in Ulster, friend of Wolfe Tome and Robert Emmett, Russell was executed in Downpatrick jail in October 1803. This sketch from the United Irishman newspapers weekly column, ‘The man of the week’ in...

  The ‘Lion of the West’ Ever heard of the ‘Lion of the West’? He was one of the most influential men in the middle of the 19th Century and regularly took the British government to task over their handling of the Famine crisis and other matters. He was of course Bishop of Tuam, John McHale. Born in 1791, McHale lived a long life and died during the Land War of 1881. One hundred years later on the centenary o...

James Fintan Lalor James Fintan Lalor (1809-1849) was a prominent member of the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s. His writings, which were published at the peak of the Irish Famine, were fervent in their hatred of the landlord class as well as asserting the principle of the sovereign people’s right to the land of Ireland. Lalor would inspire another generation of Irish men and women who looked for both independence...

James Daly, editor of the Connaught Telegraph Newspaper editors play an important role in the delivery and content of a newspaper and rightly great pride is taken in their finished product. Few newspapers in 19th century Ireland had such a celebrated editor as that of the Connaught Telegraph. As the newspaper reported in 1996, quoting extensively from the work of Mayo historian, Gerard Moran, its former editor, Daly liv...

Lady Fingall Today’s post features the story of Lady Fingall, member of the Anglo-Irish aristorcracy but also sometime President of the Camogie Assocition and first president of the Irish Countrywoman’s Association (ICA). Married to the 11th Earl of Fingall, the family home was at Kileen Castle near Dunsany, county Meath. Born Elizabeth Burke, Lady Fingall lived a long a varied life (1862-1944). Today, the ICA co...