Irelands largest local history resource As we enter the last day of 2024 and the new year is upon us, todays blog post looks at the importance of the archive in telling local histories. Spanning some 262 years, the INA is brimming with information which can shed new light on local and family histories. Whether it be political, social or economic history of a locality, no matter what you are after, you are sure to find it am...

Christmas traditions…looking back [Part 1] It is lovely to look back through the pages of the Irish Newspaper Archive and read of Christmas traditions of old, which as the Strabane Chronicle pointed out in 1969, differ in all parts of the country. In the first of two blog post, we look how people prepare for Christmas and in particular the lighting of the candles as depicted in the late 1960s: The Christmas cust...

Stopping the Hunt You have heard of many favorite tactics employed in Irish history from popular forms of protest, to ‘boycotting’, to Parnell’s ‘obstructionism’ in the House of Commons in the 1880s. But another favoured tactic of the Land War era centered on preventing the sport of hunting in Ireland by means of ‘Stopping the Hunt’. It was adopted all across the country and targeted the landed class who engag...

Dan Breen and his fight for freedom One of the most celebrated figures of the War of Independence in Ireland was Tipperary’s Dan Breen. Remembered as a heroic figure in the ‘Premier’ county, Breen was present when the first shots of the war were shot in January 1919 in a place called Soloheadbeg. The Irish Press gave this glowing tribute, one of many published at the time, when Breen died on 27 December 1969: ...

Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone I recently overheard a conversation about Irish history on film, both the merits for and against those which have been made to date. Of course, few have won such acclaim or indeed viewership as the 1996 Neil Jordan telling of Michael Collins. But what other Irish characters would make for good film making? Daniel O’Connell? CS Parnell? The subject of yesterdays blog post – Maud Gonne M...

Today’s blog post looks back to 1953 and the announcement of the death of the legendary figure Maud Gonne. A prominent player in the literary revival and the independence movement, Gonne was connected with many of the leading figures of the revolutionary period.   Here the Donegal Democrat newspaper reports on her death and recalls some connections with that county: Madam Maud Gonne MacBride widow of Major John Mac...

This December marks the 103rd anniversary of the signing of the Anglo Irish Treaty in 1921. It brought to an end the War of Independence and paved the way for the establishment of the Irish Free State. Of course, the terms of the Treaty allowed the British government to hold on to three ports, strategic naval points in Ireland. As the Meath Chronicle reported in 1984 there were a number of Meath connections to the signing o...

Patrick Kavanagh and Advent As we approach the season of Advent of and the approach of Christmas, the mind turns to Patrick Kavanagh and his poem ‘Advent’. In this the county Monaghan poet lamented how life had changed in the modern world and that: O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching For the difference that sets an old phrase burning…. Kavanagh of course was one of Ireland’s great poe...

Tomorrow, 29 November Ireland goes to the polls, and even at this late stage the outcome is far from certain.      Looking back to the 1918 General Election held in the days that followed the end of the First World War, and one can trace the start of a public fascination with such events. The election of 1918 was a fascinating contest as the writer SJL reminded readers of the Irish Press newspaper in the 1970s: ...

The Bureau of Military History   On the great insights into life during the Irish War of Independence is the amazing collection of documents which were compiled by the Bureau of Military History in the 1940s and the 1950s. This witness testimonies– a collection of 1,773 witness statements, and which comprises other ancillary documents sheds light on the War in almost every part of Ireland. The archives can be full search...