Latest Blogs
A Lesson Learned in Leinster Square
A variety of pedlars worked the streets of suburban Dublin more than a hundred years ago, fascinating, and sometimes terrifying, the local children.
Great Days in Rathmines
A citizen of Rathmines remembers the idyllic days of his childhood in the prosperous suburb around the turn of the twentieth century.
A Sneakin’ Regard
Rich and poor alike in Ireland tended to support constitutional politics, but this did not mean they did not sometimes have sympathy for those arrested for violent acts.
No Pussyfooting
The city authorities had a short way with mendicants, pests and malingerers back in the days before political correctness gone mad.
Use Your Head
Sexual harassment is an unpleasant practice and often goes unpunished. But not always.
CURATES AND COUNTERJUMPERS
A dispute over power in our national sporting organisations brings together Joyce’s Citizen, a nationalist MP and son of an immigrant Italian sculptor, and the father of Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s wartime minister who hid his Irish origins.
DEBAUCHERY IN DUBLIN FOUR
A German visitor to Ireland in 1828 found that poverty and an absence of material prospects could not prevent the Irish from having a good time, in their characteristic way.
THE PRAM WARS
The city authorities in Dublin have waged a long war against casual traders, but not without provoking some spirited resistance.
PORT IF YOU PLEASE
An eighteenth century traveller to Ireland was so uncomplimentary about everyone that he managed to unite all strands of opinion against him.
ON DAWSON STREET
This broad, pleasant street, laid out in the eighteenth century, contained the homes and haunts of many prominent figures associated with parliament; hence the large, fine houses.
PARNELL STREET FENIANS
The commercial heart of Dublin city centre, with its large shops and many shop assistants, was fertile ground in the nineteenth century for Fenian recruiters.
DUBLIN MAN CAUSES WORLD WAR
By this riverside, on our sunnybank, how buona the vista, by Santa Rosa! A field of May! the very vale of Spring.Thus Joyce