In March 1867 the Irish Constabulary was preparing to defend against a strong Fenian rising in County Dublin, which could possibly spread around the country. My great-grandfather, Head Constable Richard Adams, with fourteen constables, was in charge of the constabulary barracks in Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. About 4am on the morning of 6 March 1867 the … Read more
Our neglect and ignorance of some important figures in early twentieth-century Ireland were highlighted recently during the transcription and publication of the Heads of Household Index to the 1851 census of Ireland for Dublin City compiled by D.A. Chart. In the light of the destruction of nineteenth-century Irish census returns housed in the Public Records … Read more
ROCHE, ‘Tiger’ (c. 1739–79), adventurer and duellist, was born David Roche in Dublin, the youngest son of James Roche, a barrister. His father died when he was young, and his mother remarried and moved to England, leaving her son in Dublin. He spent the next few years as part of a notorious set of ‘bucks’ … Read more
Between 1893 and 1946 the Huguenot Society of London (now of Great Britain and Ireland) published what were then, and still are, the only extant records of the Huguenot community in Ireland. The records, published as part of the Society’s quarto series, were printed in small numbers and were originally produced for the Society’s members … Read more
Ukraine is derived from a word meaning ‘frontier’ or ‘borderland’. Its natives dislike the definite article that is usually placed in front of it—‘the Ukraine’—as this seems to suggest that it is not an entity of itself but merely the edge of other peoples’ territories. States, and much less nations, rarely possess natural frontiers or … Read more