When Louis XVI knew that he was to be executed he chose the son of an Irish country clergyman to give him spiritual comfort on the scaffold. The priest he chose, Henry Essex Edgeworth (1745–1807), came from a remarkable and gifted family. His forebears had acquired land in County Longford during the reign of Queen … Read more
The Irish question was a constant source of concern and debate in the nineteenth-century British press, but perhaps never more so than in the mid-1880s and early 1890s, when almost every newspaper and journal offered extensive commentary on the first two Irish Home Rule bills. Comic weeklies such as Punch, Fun and Judy were no … Read more
When Michael William Balfe returned to Dublin in November 1838 it was his first visit to his native city since his departure in 1823 at the age of fifteen. The years spent abroad had brought great fame and success to the young Dubliner. Early career Balfe was born on 15 May 1808 at 10 Pitt … Read more
‘When Mrs Yelverton emerged from the Four Courts, a great demonstration of popular enthusiasm took place. She was cheered by fifty thousand people frantic with joy, who had waited outside the gates to hear the result . . . at the Gresham Hotel . . . in response to a universal call she came to … Read more
In the light of recent events in Palestine, it is interesting to note that a dispute over the control of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem was one of the immediate causes of the Crimean War of 1854–6. In the summer of 1850 Orthodox and Roman Catholic monks clashed over the question of who … Read more