In its heyday, however, Ballyshanassy rivalled its northern neighbor, Box Hill, in importance and could have become the seat of local government. Continue reading
Filed under History …
Rev. James Harold (1744 -1831): The Saggart Deportee
Fr Harold’s informal priestly work attracted the suspicions of the authorities not least among them Captain William Bligh of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame Continue reading
Dr. Nicholas O’Donnell: ‘A Towering Figure’
In Melbourne there is no figure that has done more for the collection, study and dissemination of uniquely Irish and Catholic texts. Continue reading
Roger Casement: : ‘A Real Citizen of the World’
Had Casement been a conventional man, married with a wife and family in Ireland, he would never have been free to have travelled as he did in such difficult realms, and re-defined so radically, at such cost to himself, and at such a critical point in history, geo-politics and social justice agendas. Continue reading
On the Edges of Revolution
Women trekked over uncertain ground, took shelter where they could, panned for gold, or tended the campfire for their menfolk. They conceived, gave birth and reared children under canvas in searing heat and dust in summer and in the cold damp in winter… Continue reading
An Irish-Australian ‘Who am I?’
Ironically, the Irish radical Duffy was the only member of the new parliament who had served in the House of Commons in London. Continue reading
Australia’s newest Irish novelist
Evelyn Conlon is now officially an Australian novelist: her latest novel, Not the Same Sky, about Irish Famine Orphans of the 1840s, sits proudly among the Australian novels in Readings bookshop. Continue reading
John Redmond Book Launch
Invitation to the launch of a new book by Dermot Meleady on the leader of the Home Rule Party, John Redmond. Continue reading
Who created the nocturne? Is it Polish or Irish?
I wish to establish, once and for all, the right of John Field to be credited with the invention and naming of the nocturne. Continue reading
A Light in the Window
In this highly readable memoir, Mary, in conjunction with her daughter, Tessa, narrates how a ‘reserved freckle-faced bookworm’ (p.26) from Ballina ‘a small town in a small country on the western periphery of Europe’, became one of Ireland’s most recognisable and celebrated leaders, both domestically and internationally. Continue reading
