A tower house is a fortified medieval residence of stone, usually four or more stories in height. Like most of the surviving monuments of our medieval past, the majority of Irish tower houses are in poor condition, with collapsed walls and ivy shrouded exteriors reflecting centuries of neglect. Yet these ruins, the remnants of a … Read more
Irishmen do not need to have indicated to them the hardship of being governed by those alien to them in temperament, ideals and traditions. An Englishmen they say can never understand the needs of a country like Ireland. How strange then that all men should be considered gifted with the wonderful power of sympathetic interest … Read more
The Irish national anthem is a source of some tension and confusion. At frequent intervals over the past seventy-five years, its text has been attacked as inappropriate. The same objections have been repeated: that its militaristic subject matter and sentiments are irrelevant for a modern, independent, neutral state, or that the text perpetuates attitudes which … Read more
A variety of source material survives from which the history of Gaelic society in the early modern period can be reconstructed. Rather than focusing too narrowly on bardic poetry as a means of interpreting the native Irish response to colonisation, the full range of extant sources should be utilised, in conjunction with the available English … Read more
One of the most argued over events in the career of Hugh O’Neill, second Earl of Tyrone, is his departure from Ireland with Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, on 14 September 1607. English contemporaries claimed that he fled in anticipation of the discovery of a plot of his against the government. Later apologists for O’Neill … Read more