This month marks the passing of century since a day-long battle played out in the neighbouring West Cork villages of Enniskeane and Ballineen. Pauline Murphy tells us more about November 4, 1922, when a fierce fight took place between large parties of Anti-Treaty IRA volunteers and Free State troops, resulting […]
After such a dry summer it was inevitable that we’d get enough rain at some point to balance out the annual rainfall. From the middle of October heavy downpours signalled the onset of housing stock and the wind down to the grazing season for the year began. I housed a […]
The policy of replacing the Irish language with English began in the 14th century, but was largely unsuccessful until the nineteenth writes Eugene Daly. The defeat of the Irish at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 was the beginning of the end of the old Irish order, but the native […]
In a special series, Holger Smyth of Inanna Rare Books (Skibbereen) revisits houses shown in the rare Hodges publication ‘Cork and County Cork in the Twentieth Century’. Episode 1: Bridgemount (Dunmanway)– From the O’Sullivan Beara to german bakery Original entry in Hodges, 1911: “Bridgemount is the Residence of Dr.J.J.O’Callaghan, and […]
Back in August, I wrote about the beginnings of the Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-21, as well as the causes and the belligerents involved. It makes an interesting case study because it ran almost parallel to Ireland’s revolution war and civil war 1919-23, yet the two couldn’t be more […]
“That bomb was definitely placed there with a view to killing all in that band.”– James O’Neill On July 31, 1975, in County Down, five people were killed, including three members of the popular Miami Showband, in an attack in by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group. Despite the story of […]