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Irish History
Black Jack Adair, Donegal’s Most Hated Man
John George “Jack” Adair was born on the 3rd March 1823 in “Queen’s County” in Ireland. (The county in question was renamed “Laois” after Irish independence, for obvious reasons.) It was an appropriate home for the Adairs, who were all…
Longford’s Queen of Crooks | Chicago May, Blackmail Extraordinaire
It was on St Stephens day 1870 when Mary Anne Duignan was born to Thomas Duignan and Mary Elizabeth Brady in Edenmore, Ballinamuck. The eldest of two daughters and three sons, she grew up in comfortable surroundings on a 140 acre farm in…
Jennie Hodgers a.k.a Albert Cashier | An Irishwoman Infiltrates the American Civil War
Ireland has produced many famous females who have made their mark in culture, politics and the arts. Many become household names, some are remembered and forgotten simultaneously, and others fall into obscurity. Jennie Hodgers could be…
Petronilla de Meath, Irish Witch
It’s a simple and somewhat sad fact that we really don’t know that much about Petronilla de Meath. We don’t know exactly when she was born (probably some time around 1300), nor do we know who her parents were or what they did. (We do know…
The Other Irish Connection | Barack Obama and Daniel O’Connell
‘Race,’ President Obama said in his farewell address, ‘remains a potent and often divisive force in our society.’ ‘You never really know a person,’ he said, quoting Atticus Finch, hero of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, ‘until you…
Blood on the Leaves | Ep. 2 | The Abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer
Last Week: The Baader-Meinhof Death Night
The body of Max Weinberg lay outside the front door of Apartment 1, Connollystraße 31 in Munich’s Olympic village. Coach of the Israeli wrestling team at the 1972 Olympics, he was the first…
Ninette De Valois: The Godmother of Ballet
It is the year 1927 and I am sitting in the dark vestibule of the Festival Theatre in Cambridge. I am listening to a rich Irish voice that seems to intone a request that I should come to Dublin and produce for the Abbey Theatre. The voice…
‘Fashion with an Irish Brogue’: The Life and Legacy of Sybil Connolly
It was October 1953 on a flight bound for Texas from New York. Carmel Snow, then the editor of Harpers Bazaar was sitting with her cousin, Veronica Freeman. Next to them was a nervous young woman in her early thirties named Sybil Connolly.…
Titus Oates, the Perjuring Priest
Titus Oates was a liar. But he was a special type of liar, the kind who told a lie that people desperately wanted to believe. If his lie was a spark, then it started an inferno - and that inferno would consume dozens of lives before it ran…
Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, heir to the Earldom of Chesterfield, was born on the 22nd September 1694. He was a child of a family who had been part of the British aristocracy for centuries. One of his ancestors had been executed by Edward VI’s…