His wife is reported in 1926 as being a ‘Delph shop-keeper’ on her ‘own account.’ This matches my mother’s story of the family having a shop. Continue reading
Filed under Irish history …
Catalpa flag on display at National Museum of Ireland for first time
The flag is one of the last surviving artifacts linked to the dramatic prison break in Western Australia that unfolded 150 years ago, from April 17 to 19, 1876. During the operation, six Fenian prisoners escaped from a British penal colony and made their way aboard the US whaling ship Catalpa. Continue reading
Irish-Australian Women Writers: 1. Eliza Hamilton Dunlop (1796–1880)
Eliza was obviously interested in people who came from different cultures, and she tried to understand them by studying their languages. We see this in some of her first poems written in Ireland. For instance, she made a point of using Irish placename spellings, rather than anglicised ones, when describing the impressive natural features of south County Down, including the Mourne Mountains. Continue reading
New Digital Irish Census: Irish Free State 1926
For many families, this will be the first opportunity to see relatives recorded in the early years of the Irish Free State. Beyond genealogy, the records will support research in social history, economics, public health, housing, education and language use. Continue reading
‘Hear the echo from the barn barrel’: learning Irish in Newfoundland
Class took place on Monday night around the kitchen table, and it was always a relaxing cultural evening. Afterwards the chat continued often to near midnight. Indeed, there were times I felt transported to a farm house in the Donegal Gaeltacht of the 1960s and that I was not in Canada at all. Continue reading
Spotlight in Irish Film Production: NO18 Films: Made in Dublin
he video ‘was created to capture Brian’s deep knowledge of the craft, specifically the specialised stretching and table cutting techniques that modern machines simply cannot replicate…and serves as a visual record of a vanishing skill and an important piece of the cultural fabric of Dublin’. Continue reading
From Crown to Harp
How the Anglo-Irish Treaty was Undone 1922-1949 A Book Review by Séamus Bradley David McCullagh: From Crown to Harp: How the Anglo-Irish Treaty was Undone 1922-1949, Gill Books, Dublin, 2025.RRP: €26.99ISBN: 9781804581469 gillbooks.ie In Irish secondary school history books, the journey from the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty – that set up the Free State – … Continue reading
What we are reading, watching, attending
Anne Duffy-Lindsay was attracted by Australia’s ‘forward thinking’ and the ‘space’ she would find. Continue reading
Ireland’s Daughters: The Earl Grey Orphans Who Shaped Australia.
Maria left Ireland aged fourteen. According to the Irish Famine Memorial’s orphan database, she left Portumna as a Roman Catholic orphan of James and Margaret Maher (both deceased), sailing on the Thomas Arbuthnot to Sydney in 1850. Continue reading
In the Footsteps of Mary: a traveller’s tale of ancestry
Mary and many of her fellow passengers – convicts – on board the Earl Grey, having left Dublin five months earlier in December 1849, and disembarking on a grey May day on the other side of the world in 1850.
Tinteán 