Becher of Aughadown, Lough Ine and Bagenalstown House

Becher of Aughadown, Lough Ine and Bagenalstown House

Tracing a line of the Becher family of County Cork, Ireland, that descend from Phane Becher (c.1546-1592), including the Venerable John Richard Hedges Becher (1861-1946), Archdeacon of Ossory & Leighlin, John Hedges Becher (1888-1967) who worked on railways in...
Notes on Cork City

Notes on Cork City

Snapshots from the history of Cork, from the Kingdom of Desmond, established in 1118 by Tadgh MacCarthy, to the city’s rise as a trade hub, the impact of the Wars of the Roses, and notable events like the Battle of the Starlings and the Great Hunger, emphasising...
The Life & Death of Tomás Ceannt, aka Thomas Kent (1865-1916)

The Life & Death of Tomás Ceannt, aka Thomas Kent (1865-1916)

Tom Kent’s nerves were so bad on the morning of his execution that the guards brought a chair in for him to sit upon. The man for whom Kent Station in Cork City would one day be named was buried in quicklime in an unmarked grave. This is the story of one of the more...
Reflections on Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973)

Reflections on Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973)

  It is not every day that you find a C.B.E. in your sock drawer, but that’s precisely what I came upon when I moved in to my late grandfather’s house in Co Kilkenny in 1999. ‘Commander, Order of the British Empire’, it announced. I presented the medal to the...
The Whiteboy Insurrection in Macroom, 1822

The Whiteboy Insurrection in Macroom, 1822

An account of one of the most notorious agrarian secret societies to emerge in the Irish countryside in the Georgian age, who remerged during the war against tithes, arguably the most reviled tax of the early 19th century. Become a member of Turtle’s History Library...