Search Results for 'historian'

FÉILE NA bhFlaitheartach is different from other summer schools. It is not a talking shop for Official Ireland, but a commemoration of two Aran Island born brothers, who went into the world with a desire to change it.

In 1432, Pope Eugene IV issued a document that lay in obscurity deep within the Vatican vaults for centuries. When the doors of the archives and library of the Holy See were thrown open during the papacy of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), the British government sent a team of historians to transcribe everything they could find relating to Ireland. As a result of that investigative trawl, the well-known historian William Henry Grattan Flood presented Dr John Healy, Archbishop of Tuam, with a medieval document that detailed Rome’s official 15th century stance regarding the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage. The document, dated 27 September 1432, states, “Pope Eugene IV grants to the Archbishop of Tuam [at the time Seán Mac Feorais, aka John de Bermingham] an indulgence of two years and two quarantines [one quarantine was a penance of 40 days], on the usual conditions, for those penitents who visit and give alms toward the repair of the fabric of the chapel of St Patrick on the mountain which is called Croagh Patrick: this indulgence to be gained on the Sunday preceding the Feast of St Peter’s Chains [August 1]: because on that day a great multitude resorts thither to venerate St Patrick in the said chapel.” Archbishop Healy revived the old tradition of pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick and built the present church on its summit in 1905. But the history of the pilgrimage goes back further than the 1400s.

Some of NUI Galway’s most remarkable - but little known - women over the last century will be celebrated and remembered this Friday July 21 as a fascinating programme of talks and performances will take place entitled ‘Women in history, politics and culture’.

One hundred years ago there were a series of truly terrible battles on the Western Front which were watched anxiously in Ireland as elsewhere. On June 7, near the Belgian village of Messines, the Allied army won a substantial victory. It gave hope, which turned out to be tragically false, that perhaps this was the beginning of the end of the war. With the capture of the Messines ridge, the Allies were confident they could clear a path all the way down to Passchendaele, and capture the Belgian coast up the Dutch border.

HOW DID a freed slave, and the first American sporting hero, end up being buried in a pauper’s grave in Mervue? The fascinating story of Tom Molineaux will be told in a new documentary to be screened at the Galway Film Fleadh.

Get ready for an O’Malley invasion at the end of next week, because they are all coming to Galway for the annual O’Malley Rally. The O’Malley Clan is a worldwide association of people bearing the O’Malley name. Its aim is to foster connections between people of O’Malley heritage and promote an awareness of the history of this Gaelic Clan and later this month they are holding their 63rd annual rally family day in the grounds of Claregalway Castle while a host of other events take place across the city and county.

Athlone Castle welcomes well-known Mullingar native, historian, and renowned academic, Ruth Illingworth, for a free talk in the Lower Keep as part of the Bealtaine Festival on Saturday, May 27, at 2.30pm.

‘It was a scandal the way people waited in vain to see President Reagan and all they saw was a hand at the window,” lamented the late Cllr John F King at the first city council meeting following the visit of President and Mrs Reagan to Galway on June 2 1984.

It was the action that went down in military history as much for its commanders’ incompetence as for its soldiers’ perceived heroism.

TOMORROW IS January 6 - the feast of the Epiphany - which in Ireland has long been known as Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Christmas in Ireland and was a day when women would get together and celebrate. That hallowed tradition is to get a whole new lease of life – and lights - this weekend with a new festival - Illuminate Herstory - taking place in towns and cities across the country.