The Redlegs of the Caribbean

Some years ago I was watching an interview with Rita Marley about her years with her reggae singing husband Bob. At one point she turned to the camera and said, ‘Sometime Bob say to me he wanna move to London and I say, whaddaya wanna move there for, like?’, talking...

Supple of Aghadoe Castle, Co. Cork

The Supples were an old Anglo-Norman family, descended from Philippe de Capella (or de Capel), one of the original mercenaries to participate in the Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland. Philippe came to Ireland with Robert FitzStephen in 1167 and took part in 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. Complete access to all articles on this...
Richard Boyle (1566–1643) – The Great Earl of Cork

Richard Boyle (1566–1643) – The Great Earl of Cork

Without question, Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork,  was the dominant figure on Ireland’s Blackwater Valley for the first forty years of the 17th century.  Indeed, the entrepreneur from Canterbury was one of the most extraordinary and powerful characters in Western...

Thomas Harriot – The True Discoverer of the Potato

Sir Walter Raleigh will forever to be associated with the potato. It may even be true that he grew the first potatoes in Ireland at his home Myrtle Grove, Youghal. However, the first Englishman to discover potatoes was Thomas Harriot, a remarkable scientist who...