Farmers, Landlords & Westminster Politics

Irish Land Reform & Home-Rule 1870 – 1891

Isaac Butt (1815-79) the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman became converted to the Irish national cause after witnessing the terrible sufferings of the famine victims. His earlier education was at Midleton College, Co. Cork. After Trinity University he became [...]

CORK BUTTER MARKET: In early decades of the eighteenth century, butter made in many counties in Munster was being exported through the port of Cork through to an extensive wide network of countries. At that stage it had become one of the most important shipping ports in the world. By 1774, Cork controlled as [...]

Cecil Woodham-Smith, considered the preeminent authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845-1849 that, “…no issue has provoked so much anger or so embittered relations between the two countries (England and Ireland) as the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when [...]

The war of American independence profoundly and dramatically influenced Irish politics. Its independence had a lasting effect on Irish liberal Protestants. Grattan, Ponsoby, Theobold Wolf Tone and Curran became a force in the Irish Parliament and demanded more social justice for the native Irish.  The Society of United Irishmen was founded in Belfast in 1791 [...]

Country Life that Sir Arthur Young – England’s famous Agricultural Journalist witnessed on his – Tour of Ireland (1776-1779)

When stock was taken of the restoration settlement, Catholic land owners were better off than they had been under Cromwell, but they had recovered only a fraction of their original estates. In 1641, before the war [...]

‘The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the path of man’s history and culture seems influenced by the vagaries of chance. The far-reaching ramifications of any act are seldom apparent, even to the wisest man and most prescient people. Hairpin twists and turns in the evolution of a nation or a [...]