Reputed to be the smallest lane in the world! In the early 1800’s, the widow Peg Washington watched anxiously as new buildings were erected between her home and the Duiske River. Fearing that these buildings would cut off her water supply, she asked Chief Magistrate of the town, David Burtchaell, for a gap between the buildings to allow her access to the water. When asked what width was required she replied ‘Just the width of myself’ and so Peg Washingtons Lane came to be.
The story of Ireland is, in many ways, a story of continuous migration. Many disparate groups came to Ireland over the millennia, each one leaving their mark on the character of the island. Early Stone-age settlers came, and were followed by the Iron-age Celts. Viking traders founded the first towns in Ireland. Christian missionaries built the first monasteries. The Normans came from France via England and Wales. They built stone castles and European style market towns. Later the Plantation of Ulster brought Scottish and English settlers.
These were the arrivals, but the departures are equally notable. For more than fifteen hundred years the Irish have travelled far and wide, as Missionaries, Mercenaries, and Exiles. The Irish spread religion and learning in dark-age Europe. They fought in continental wars, and they sought refuge from political repression in Spain and France.
The 19th century brought much hardship and strife to Ireland. The…
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It was built in 1808–1809, and was among the first and grandest monuments erected in memory of Nelson in the ‘THEN’ United Kingdom. It surprisingly survived until March 1966, when it was destroyed by a bomb planted by Irish republicans. Today the Spire of Dublin stands on its former ground.
It was opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1809, the fourth anniversary of the battle. It offered the citizens of Dublin an unprecedented perspective on their city. For the payment of ten pence, they could climb the 168 steps of the inner stone staircase to the viewing platform. For the next 157 years its ascent was a must on every visitor’s list.
The Dublin pillar was finished thirty-four years before the statue of the admiral was hoisted into place on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in 1843, and it was 1867 before the London monument was finally completed with the putting in place of the four lions.
One adverse comment in the Irish Magazine of September 1809 said the completion of the pillar excited no notice and was marked with indifference on the part of the Irish public, who had little interest in the triumphs of a Nelson or a Wellesley. Referring to the recent acquisition of the old Parliament House in College Green by the Bank of Ireland, the writer concluded:
‘We have changed our gentry for soldiers, and our independence has been wrested from us, not by the arms of France, but by the gold of England. The statue of Nelson records the glory of a mistress and the transformation of our senate into a discount office.’
The Irish Magazine was the publication of Watty Cox, a one-time supporter of the United Irishmen.
Many Dublin families of all classes and creeds, including the growing Catholic population, would have had strong personal reasons to rejoice at the victory of Trafalgar. It is estimated that one-quarter to one-third of the sailors who manned Nelson’s fleet were from Ireland, including 400 from Dublin, and upper-class Irish Protestant families were well represented among the officer ranks at the battle.
On 29 October 1955, a group of nine University College Dublin students locked themselves inside the pillar and tried to melt the statue with flame throwers. From the top they hung a poster of Kevin Barry, an Irish Republican Army volunteer who was executed by the British during the Irish War of Independence. A crowd gathered below and began to sing the well-known Irish rebel song “Kevin Barry”. Gardaí forced their way inside with sledgehammers. They took the students’ names and addresses and brought them downstairs. As a Garda van arrived it was attacked by the sympathetic crowd. Rather than arrest the students, the Gardaí merely confiscated their equipment and told everyone to leave quietly. None were ever charged.
At 1.32am on 8 March 1966, a bomb destroyed the upper half of the pillar, throwing the statue of Nelson into the street. It had been planted by a group of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers, including Joe Christle. Christle, dismissed ten years earlier from the IRA for unauthorised actions, was a qualified barrister and saw himself as a socialist revolutionary. It is thought that the bombers acted when they did to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. No one was hurt by the explosion. The closest bystander was a 19-year-old taxi driver, Steve Maughan, whose taxi was blasted to pieces.
The official response to the dynamiting of the pillar came from the Government, through the Minister for Justice, Mr Brian Lenihan. He condemned ‘the reckless action’, which had caused wanton damage to property, disrupted traffic, and inconvenienced thousands of Dubliners. In an editorial the same day The Irish Times deemed the Minister’s statement a “tepid” reply to what it described as a ‘coup in the heart of the capital city’ and a direct blow to the prestige of the state and the authority of the Government.
It was built in 1808–1809, and was among the first and grandest monuments erected in memory of Nelson in the ‘THEN’ United Kingdom. It surprisingly survived until March 1966, when it was destroyed by a bomb planted by Irish republicans. Today the Spire of Dublin stands on its former ground.
It was opened to the public on Trafalgar Day, 21 October 1809, the fourth anniversary of the battle. It offered the citizens of Dublin an unprecedented perspective on their city. For the payment of ten pence, they could climb the 168 steps of the inner stone staircase to the viewing platform. For the next 157 years its ascent was a must on every visitor’s list.
The Dublin pillar was finished thirty-four years before the statue of the admiral was hoisted into place on Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square in 1843, and it was 1867 before the London monument was finally…
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From spectral soldiers to unearthly urchins, our urban and rural pubs often play host to chilling tales of ghostly happenings.
Can your local top these haunted hostelries for revenant regulars? Tell us about it in the comments.
EAW007056. 1947. Aerofilms Ltd© Historic England Archive
Situated in the heart of one of the world’s greatest Neolithic monuments, Avebury’s Red Lion is supposedly home to at least five different ghosts. Built as a farmhouse in the late 16th or early 17 century, it became a coaching inn in the early 19th century. One of its more spectacular ghostly apparitions is a phantom carriage that clatters through its yard. Inside, the ghost of Florrie haunts the pub. Florrie took a lover while her husband was away fighting during the Civil War. He returned to find the couple, shot his wife’s lover and stabbed Florrie, throwing…
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The behaviour of Offa’s Dyke on Rushock Hill, north of Kington in Herefordshire, is crucial for understanding the monument’s broader military, political and socio-economic significance. I recently walked the dyke on Rushock Hill and tried to understand its behaviour as it dramatically shifts alignment as it ascends and encircles Herrock Hill and then sweeps eastwards, way off its usual path, to conduct an angle turn at the highest point on Rushock Hill. In doing so, it funnels movement to a point that enjoys long-distance views both north and south. It then heads south-east, then east, before turning north-east and descending to Kennel Wood where it is lost. As a result, there has been intense discussion by those few commentators who have, over the last century, attempted to understand Britain’s largest human-made feature from before the modern era.
Looking west, Offa’s Dyke skirts the southern slope of Herrock Hill through thick…
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Holy Well (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – NT 2618 7353
Also Known as:
Archaeology & History
Reproduction 1540 sketch showing the Well
This ‘holy well of the dragon-slayer’ could once be found close to where old Cowgate meets St Mary’s Street. Highlighted on an old map of the city around 1540, and on Mr Bryce’s sketch of the old inner city at the end of the 19th century, we do not know when the Well acquired its name, but it may have been by an early group of jews, to whom the saint was important. Hereby in 1779 was listed a small piece of land called the ‘Silverwell Close’ which both Watson (1923) and Harris (1996) thought was a corruption of the St Michael’s Well, somehow. Watson (1923) explained that St Michael’s
“connection with fountains, or a ‘silver well’, is probably due to the…
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Excavations over a century ago at the Lligwy burial chamber (Coflein says 1909, but please note the Cadw guide states 1908) revealed 15-30 individuals’ bones together with a bone pin, Neolithic/Early Bronze Age pottery, animal bones and shells . These came from two layers of deposit separated by stone paving.
The Lligwy monument isn’t the most beautiful or fascinating of Neolithic megalithic monuments. However, there is certainly a distinctively squat, massive charm to the monument.
It is located close to a lane to the west of Moelfre, Anglesey, not far from a lay-by where you can also visit the Lligwy medieval chapel and Din Lligwy Romano-British village. It comprises 8 uprights. These frame a natural fissure in the limestone bedrock. The uprights support a humongous behemoth of a capstone measuring 5.5m by 4.6m by 1m, and estimated to weigh c. 25 tons.
Within the chamber today, one can see evidence…
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Iustitia, more commonly known as Lady Justice, situated over one of the gates that gives access to the central courtyard of Dublin Castle.
The statue was erected by the British authorities in 1751 and was sculpted by Van Nost. Its design was a source of outrage and amusement for many in Dublin city, for it betrays many of the characteristics that statues of this type normally exhibit.
Lady Justice is often pictured blindfolded, so as to be blind to discrimination. Here she is fully able to see. Her scales, normally depicted as being perfectly leveled are actually tilted to the Revenue office. The sword she carries, which frequently points downwards (though not always), is held upright and she gazes at it with a smile on her face.
Her position on the building is what drew most attention to the statue. While statues of this kind can be found on government…
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Muriel MacSwiney leaves Brixton Prison
‘Daily Graphic’
26 October 1920
Newspaper cutting
30 cm x 26 cm
Newspaper cutting from the ‘Daily Graphic’. The caption accompanying the photograph reads: ‘Mrs Muriel MacSwiney, widow of the Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, leaving Brixton Prison for the last time before her husband’s death, which occurred yesterday, the 75th day of his hunger strike. For weeks past she had visited daily and done all that a devoted wife could do for a doomed husband. They had been married for three years. Mrs MacSwiney is also seen with their baby daughter, aged a year and 8 months’. Muriel Murphy was a member of a wealthy brewing family in Cork. She married Terence MacSwiney whilst he was imprisoned in England in June 1917. MacSwiney was a playwright, author and politician. He was elected Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the War of Independence…
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Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge (CNnaG) is the central steering council for the Irish language community. Its mission is to “strengthen and consolidate goodwill and support for the Irish language and its usage as a living language so that it may be used freely and widely in all aspects of Irish life”.
An Chomhdháil was established in 1943. Its role is to act as a coordinating body for voluntary Irish language organisations. (The National Youth Council of Ireland and The Irish Congress of Trade Unions are similar umbrella organisations). The board of the not-for-profit organisation is made up of representatives of its 24 member organisations. The secretaria of An Chomhdháil, 10 employees, is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation.
The organisation currently sees its role as providing leadership to those involved in community and voluntary work on behalf of the Irish language; to provide analysis of Government policies with…
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Irish history, folklore and all that 