Irish Famine 1879 The Irish famine of 1879 was the last main Irish famine. Unlike the earlier Great Famines of 1740-1741 and 1845-1849 the 1879 famine (sometimes called the “mini-famine” or An Gorta Beag) caused hunger rather than mass deaths, due to changes in the technology of food production, different structures of land-holding (the disappearance [...]
James Larkin James Larkin, the son of Irish parents, was born in Liverpool on 21st January 1876. When he was five years old he was sent to live with his grandparents in Newry in Ireland.Larkin returned to England in 1885 and found employment as a dock labourer. Converted to socialism, Larkin joined the Independent Labour [...]
Revenue History 1923-1988 February 21st 1923, six months after his death, the wish expressed in Michael Collins’s last known letter materialised. On that date his objective of an organised body to collect the State’s revenues got final approval when Government Order 2/23 became law. Revenue. Irish Tax and Customs The Changing Distribution of Protestants in [...]
The Doegen Records Web Project A project of the Royal Irish Academy Library This digital archive of Irish dialect recordings made during 1928-31 comprises an important collection of early Irish language recordings of folktales, songs and other material. It includes recordings from many regions of Ireland where traditional Irish dialects have disappeared since the time [...]
DMLCS- Celtic-Latin Word List The Celtic-Latin Word-List is a working checklist of distinctive vocabulary found in the texts being treated by the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources (DMLCS) project. –Royal Irish Academy Everyday English and Slang in Ireland Welcome to the original, deadliest Irish Slang site, filling up – even [...]
Hiberno-English Archive This site will be of interest to students and scholars of Anglo-Irish literature, students and scholars of Hiberno-English and English dialects in general, Irish people and those of Irish ancestry who are interested in how and why Irish people speak the way they do, those with an interest in Irish folklore, and finally [...]
The O’Byrne Files © Dublin Slang Dictionary and Phrasebook Conversation in Dublin is like a maze, filled with twists and turns, unexpected paths, and mined with surprises to trap the unprepared visitor. So, in the interests of world peace and harmony – N. O’Byrne Yola Yola is an extinct West Germanic language formerly spoken in [...]
Giolla Mochuda Mor Ó Caiside & Tomas Ó Caisaide The earliest renowned Cassidy poet is Giolla Mochuda Mor Ó Caiside (also identified as Gilla Mo Dutu Ua Casaide). In 1147, Ó Caiside composed Banshenchas (The Lore of Woman), which is a list of famous married women in ancient world and Irish history and literatureiterature-medieval-to-17th-century/. (nb [...]
Brian Merriman 1749?–?1805 ‘Professor Seán Ó Tuama says of Merriman’s poem: The Midnight Court is undoubtedly one of the greatest comic works of literature, and certainly the greatest comic poem ever written in Ireland.‘ (Repossessions: Selected Essays on the Irish Literary Heritage, 1995). Another critic, Professor Declan Kiberd, in Irish Classics, 2000, says: ‘Merriman’s genius [...]
Bibliography of Nineteenth Century Irish Literature This resource is maintained and edited by Julia M. Wright with the generous support of CFI and SSHRC as well as various research assistants (2002-present): James Allard, Lisa Butler, Holly Crumpton, Jeremy DeVito, Susan Henry, Meagan Timney, and Sylvia Terzian. Julia M. Wright, Dalehouse University Castle Rackrent An Hibernian [...]
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born in Dublin. He moved to London as a young man (1876), where he established himself as a leading music and theatre critic in the eighties and nineties and became a prominent member of the Fabian Society, for which he composed many pamphlets. He began his literary career as a [...]
Padraic Colum Bhí athair Pádraic Colum ina mháistir ar theach na mBocht i Longfort. Is ann a rugadh Pádraic ar 8ú Nollaig 1881 – file, úrscéalaí, bailitheoir béaloideasa. Biographical note in Irish. Also includes four poems, including She Moves Through the Fair, and Irish Country Speech, an extract taken from Colum’s travelogue, The Road Round [...]
Pádraig Pearse Patrick Henry Pearse (1879–1916) was a teacher, barrister, poet, and writer who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Pearse wrote stories and poems in both Irish and English, his best-known English poem being The Wayfarer. He also penned several allegorical plays in the Irish language, including The King, [...]
James Hanley claimed he was born in Dublin on 3 September 1901, but was actually born in Liverpool in 1897 to Irish parents. His novel Boy was the subject of an obscenity charge in Manchester in early 1936 – to which his publishers pleaded guilty and were heavily fined. The book was withdrawn and all [...]
Eilís Dillon These links are presented by the literary estate of Eilís Dillon (1920-1994) one of Ireland’s most distinguished writers. To explore her work, you can focus on her novels, her detective stories and her books for young people. There are education and research resources, a biographical page, quotations from her many excellent reviews, and [...]
Walt Whitman & the Irish On May 27, 1846, just four days short of his twenty-seventh birthday, the editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, Walter Whitman as he was known then, informed his readers that “‘Valentine M’Clutchy, the Irish Agent’… a well-printed book … from the pen of one of the most popular Irish writers, the [...]
Prehistoric Music and Instruments Prehistoric Music and Instruments Prehistoric Music Ireland was established in the late 1980s, when an experimental reconstruction of a Bronze Age horn led to the establishment of the worlds first institution dedicated to the study, reproduction and exploration of prehistoric musical instruments. Initially Prehistoric Music Ireland concentrated on the great family [...]
Early Gaelic Harp its history, tradition instruments, music, and people. people. The instrument itself has to be the basis for understanding the music and traditions of the Gaelic harp. There are 19 instruments surviving from before 1800AD, the earliest dating from medieval times. – Simon Chadwick Early Gaelic Harp Opera Ireland is Ireland’s national opera [...]
Paul Brady singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is one of Ireland’s most enduringly popular artists. – Paul Brady Roger Doyle hung up his drumsticks when he was awarded a Dutch Government Scholarship to study electronic music at the Institute of Sonology, then in Utrecht. By saving his scholarship living expenses money Roger financed and came back [...]
Na Píobairí Uilleann By the 1960s very few people in Ireland were playing the pipes and far fewer, perhaps only five, were engaged in the making of the instrument. It was a matter of grave concern that the art would decline further and so The Society of Uilleann Pipers known as Na Píobairí Uilleann (The [...]