Historianka

Tag: Ireland

  • The First Scientific Investigation of a Bog Body, 1781

    Bogs are curious places. They spark memories of Irish childhood summers spent footing and saving turf amid swarms of midges. They inspire awe and alarm as nature’s own carbon-capture technology, but rapidly disappearing. For others, bogs are political landscapes that evoke anger, as age-old turbary rights appear threatened by the urgency of conservation. In the…

  • Cynthia Longfield, Madam Dragonfly

    ”I find machetes so useful in the jungle, don’t you?” Cynthia Longfield, quoted in The Times, 9 July 1991 Cynthia Longfield, ‘Madam Dragonfly’, was born in London in 1896. Her home schooling there was interrupted by regular visits to her maternal grandparents’ farm in Cloyne, Co. Cork, where she enjoyed roaming the countryside. Her early love of…

  • Lovers and ‘Paupers’: the ‘Gap Year’ in the 1830s

    This post takes a look at another young gentleman on a series of ‘gap year’ tours – William Hartigan Barrington, son of Sir Matthew, who built Glenstal Castle, Co. Limerick. Barrington was interested in new experiences, meeting young women, and finding out about poverty. Has the ‘gap year’ changed all that much? Between 1833 and…

  • John Lee’s Walking Tour of Ireland, 1806–07

    On 31 July 1806, John Fiott, later known as John Lee, left London to embark on a seven-month walking tour of Ireland, England and Wales. I wrote about his life, and about his walking tour of England in Wales in earlier posts. This post will look at the six months he spent walking around the southern half…