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Using the gloves to turn a shilling or a crown: gloved sparring in the late...
A history of gloved exhibition boxing in Ireland. By Ray Esten In devotion to Simon Byrne and his kin -the battling kind Gloved sparring The gloves were introduced to boxing by Jack Broughton, who...
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From the Shipyards to the Poitín Still – Social Class and the IRA’s 3rd...
Belfast IRA leaders Roger McCorley and Tom Fitzpatrick By Kieran Glennon In a survey of the social structure of the IRA across Ireland during the revolutionary period, Peter Hart declared that “’The...
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Lord George Hill, Improving landlord or cruel ‘Lord of the Soil’?
Lord George Hill as young man. The modernising Irish Landlord who married not one but two nieces of Jane Austen. By John Joe McGinley Lord George Augusta Hill the 3rd was an Irish military officer,...
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Podcast: Commemorating 1921 in Ireland, 100 years on
Arthur Griffith, at the Mansion House in Dublin in 1921, after the announcement of the Truce. The year 2021 sees a number of momentous centenaries in Ireland, from the bloodiest months in the War of...
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Ireland and the Anglo-Zulu War, 1879
A romantic Victorian rendering of the last stand of the British troops at Isandlwana By John Dorney On January 22, 1879, under a mountain named Isandlwana, a Zulu force, some 20,000 strong attacked a...
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Podcast: Irish Revolutionary Women with Liz Gillis and Mary McAuliffe
Cumann na mBan marching in uniform. Cathal Brennan and John Dorney speak to Liz Gillis and Dr Mary McAuliffe on the republican women and Cumman nn mBan, the Irish Citizen Army and others. First...
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Ambushes in the Irish War of Independence: Myth and Reality
The aftermath of the Kilmichael ambush, November 1920, in which 17 Auxiliaries and three IRA men were killed. By John Dorney Had it not been for the public health restrictions currently in force in...
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The Battle of Tory Island – the last engagement of the United Irishman...
The battle of Tory Island By John Joe McGinley The last battle of the United Irishman-led rebellion of 1798 was not fought, by Irishmen or even on an Irish battlefield, but at sea, off the stormy...
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Major-General Patrick Ronanye Cleburne: Cork’s Confederate General
By Ray Esten Patrick Royanye Cleburne was one the most revered military leaders of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. He started out as a private. Yet, within eighteen months he was a...
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Today in Irish History, 23 March 1921 – The Scramogue Ambush
Lancers at Strokestown House. By Thomas Tormey On 23 March 1921, Spy Wednesday, a combined force of the North Roscommon and South Roscommon Brigades launched a successful ambush on a British military...
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Podcast: Ireland the Anglo-Zulu War, 1879
A British column on the march in Zululand. (Courtesy of the National Army Museum) Cathal Brennan and John Dorney discuss the confrontation between the British Empire and the Zulu kingdom in 1879. We...
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‘A Fiend in Human Shape’? The Life and Crimes of Thomas D. Huckerby
Constable Thomas D. Huckerby By Seán William Gannon The behaviour of the Black and Tans, the mostly British recruits into the Royal Irish Constabulary in 1920-21, has always been controversial. They...
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Podcast: Anne Chambers on Peter Howe Browne, Lord Sligo: ‘the Great Leviathan’
Interview by John Dorney with Anne Chambers, the author ‘The Great Leviathan’, on Peter Howe Browne, the Marques of Sligo. First broadcast on the Irish History Show. We discuss: His family’s background...
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‘They were determined to obtain a sacrifice’: First Irish state executions...
A Garda van in the 1930s. By Gerard Shannon It was the night of 16 August 1940 and a worried Christy Quearney cycled through Dublin city’s southside. Quearney, a member of the IRA’s Training...
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The sinking of HMS Wasp, 1884 – A curse, sabotage or human error?
The HMS Wasp is wrecked off Tory Island, 1884. By John Joe McGinley In September 1884, a royal navy gunboat, on route to carry out an eviction sunk off the coast of Tory Island in Donegal. Smashed on...
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Podcast: James Hoban – Irish architect of the White House
A stamp commemorating Hoban, from 1981. Cathal Brennan and John Dorney interview Stewart McLauren of the White House Historical Association about James Hoban the Irishman who designed the residency of...
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Podcast: Cormac Moore on the Partition of Ireland
2 National Army soldier and RUC officer at the border in Pettigo, Co Donegal Cathal Brennan and John Dorney interview Cormac Moore on the partition of Ireland, 100 years ago. First broadcast on The...
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Albert Cashier, the woman who fought as a man for the Union.
By John Joe McGinley There are over 400 documented cases of women disguising themselves as men to fight for both the Union and the Confederacy in the American Civil War. One of the most famous female...
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Podcast: Brian Hanley on the Arms Crisis of 1970
An IRA arms shipment seized in the 1980s. The prospect of Irish government ministers organising such as shipment in 1970 triggered a crisis in southern Irish politics. Cathal Brennan and John Dorney...
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‘An unnecessary number of graves?’ – The road to the Truce of July 1921
Arthur Griffith, at the Mansion House in Dublin in 1921, after the announcement of the Truce. The triumphs and failures of diplomacy that led to the end of the Irish War of Independence. By John Dorney...
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