This is a story that appeared in my research for the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum to celebrate the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade back in 2007. The bare bones of the story are that Samuel Gist was an orphan from Bristol who was educated at one of the city’s charity schools … Continue reading
A lot of folklore and witch stories are written in a way that it is hard to empathise with those involved, but here’s an item which raises a lot of modern issues, from BBC History Magazine, an article by Richard Sugg on ‘Fear of Fairies. Probably the most notorious Irish case took place in Ballyvdlea, … Continue reading
The i paper and the Independent have a lot of award winning journalists, but sometimes they publish personal stories by them which are often more interesting than the regular news. Patrick Cockburn is a brilliant writer on the Middle East, but here’s his take on a matter closer to home, that of Roger Casement, executed … Continue reading
One of the best known and most visited monuments in Britain, if not the world, is Nelson’s column in the centre of Trafalgar Square, carved by E.H. Bailey, of 1840. But Dublin had its own, smaller, column 30 years earlier in the middle of O’Connell Street. Irish Nationalists tried to blow it up in 1938 … Continue reading
My previous posts on common land only refer to England and Wales as the systems in Scotland and Ireland were completely different. Here is some more from Lord Everley’s Commons, Forests and Footpaths “Commons of this manorial type …do not exist in Ireland or Scotland. All the land in those countries, even where uncultivated and incapable … Continue reading
