Search Results for 'Napoleon'

After her Connemara tour Maria Edgeworth kept up a correspondence with the Martins. She followed their fortunes and misfortunes with all the attention of an enthralled novel-reader. There was plenty to hold her attention. In the spring of 1835 the Martins travelled to London where Mary was presented at court and moved in fashionable society, attending dinner parties and charity events, of which a cynical Lord Byron remarked that these galas were nothing less than a marriage market.

A REBELLION has taken place at Manor Farm. The animals have overthrown their human masters and assumed control.

On the afternoon of July 14 1789 a mob unleashed its fury and frustration by forcing an entry into the Bastille, a medieval armoury, fortress and political prison in the centre of Paris. In the short but bloody battle that ensued some 98 of the mob were killed, as were three officers of the guard. Three more were lynched, and Marquis de Launay, governor of the prison, and the local mayor, Prevot de Flesselles, who had pleaded for peace, were stabbed to death and beheaded. Although the prison contained only seven inmates at the time of the storming, it was seen as a symbol of the monarchy’s abuse of power. It was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.

For anyone walking along the canal in recent weeks, a hive of activity is most noticeable with the clearance of heavy scrub and vegetation.

For any visitor to Dublin in the early 19th century, to miss seeing the great Daniel O’Connell would have made their visit almost worthless. William Makepeace Thackeray, on the threshold of becoming one of the greatest writers of the English language, spent three months touring Ireland in 1842 collecting his impressions of the ‘manners and the scenery’ of the country and its people, for his successful Irish Sketch Book published some years later. Back in Dublin at the conclusion of his tour he lost no time heading to the Mansion House to see the Liberator in person.*

Outside my window in east Galway, a small herd of suckler cows and their young calves graze and loiter, content it seems to me, and oblivious to the new normal.

MAGNIFICENT MUSIC for a March Evening is the title of the Galway Choral Association’s upcoming concert which will see it perform Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis,, also known as the Nelson Mass.

In political terms, these last few weeks have been depressing. First, we were subjected to the electoral version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (aka the Irish presidency), while thousands of Irish families remain homeless, with no sign of a publicly financed house building programme.

AS THE centenary of the end of WWI draws close, Galway will mark the event with a performance of Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man and Haydn's Mass in a Time of War.

The air in political circles is dense with anxiety these days. Having been pulled back from the brink of a cliff edge which was heading straight into the depths of an election nobody wanted, TDs remain cautiously hopeful that more time can be had before facing the electorate.