In July 1959, An Garda Síochána welcomed twelve female members to its rankings. These women were the first female officers to ever join the organisation, and their bravery paved the…

The 1979 Fastnet Race was the 28th Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Fastnet Race, a yachting race held generally every two years since 1925 on a 605-mile course from Cowes direct…

The tapering headland of Hook Head, located in the south-western corner of county Wexford, forms the eastern boundary of the great estuary known as Waterford Harbour. The headland is sometimes called…

The Eighteenth Century and the Chesterfield Era The 4th Earl of Chesterfield was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in January 1745, and is credited with initiating a series of landscape…

In the last 1300 years Spike Island has been host to a 6th century Monastery, a 24 acre Fortress, the largest convict depot in the world in Victorian times and…

King Henry II gifted Richard Talbot the lands and harbour of Malahide for his services to the crown in 1185. From that point on, the Talbot family became intertwined with…

Galileo, in full Galileo Galilei, (born February 15, 1564, Pisa [Italy]—died January 8, 1642, Arcetri, near Florence), Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician who made fundamental contributions to the sciences…

This November marks three decades since the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. From art installations to dance parties, this is what’s planned. A seven-day city-wide festival…

Jimmy Hoffa, in full James Riddle Hoffa, (born February 14, 1913, Brazil, Indiana, U.S.—disappeared July 30, 1975, Bloomfield Hills, near Detroit, Michigan), American labour leader who served as president of…

The DUGA over-the-horizon radar was one of the most important elements of the early warning system against an American nuclear attack on the USSR. More expensive to build than the…

Few names have cast more terror into the human heart than Dracula. The legendary vampire, created by author Bram Stoker in his 1897 novel of the same name, has inspired…

So was born what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctica expedition of 1914 – 1917. The goal was ambitious – audacious even, considering that only 10 men had ever stood at the…

Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and a saga spanning decades? Hook it to our veins. Given that it’s a historical epic, it might be handy to get…

Lee Harvey Oswald, (born October 18, 1939, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.—died November 24, 1963, Dallas, Texas), accused assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963….

Che Guevara, by name of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, (born June 14, 1928, Rosario, Argentina—died October 9, 1967, La Higuera, Bolivia), theoretician and tactician of guerrilla warfare, prominent communist…

George Orwell, pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair, (born June 25, 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India—died January 21, 1950, London, England), English novelist, essayist, and critic famous for his novels Animal Farm…

On the 12th of September 1910, the first female policewoman with arrest powers was appointed in the United States. Since then, women in law enforcement have never looked back. Alice…

During the Second World War, an estimated 140,000 Allied military personnel were captured by Japanese Imperial Forces and held in a network of camps stretching from Rangoon (Burma-Myanmar) down through…

Tom Crean was born to Patrick and Catherine Crean, on 25th of February 1877, at Gurtuchrane, near Annascaul in Co. Kerry, Ireland. Tom’s was one of ten children, and the…

Vilified by her English adversaries as ‘a woman who hath imprudently passed the part of womanhood’, Grace O’Malley was ignored by contemporary chroniclers in Ireland, yet her memory survived in…

Dame Alice Kyteler was an unprecedented woman for her time. Throughout the late 13th and early 14th century, she had four husbands, conducted much of her own business with her…

On this day in history – 29th of August. 1958 – Michael Jackson is born Pop sensation Michael Jackson is born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana. Jackson began…

Defence Forces historian and author, Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey, provides a panoramic history of one of the Defence Forces most iconic installations, Collins Barracks in Cork, a bastion which has…

Liam Kitson was stationed in Clonmany, Co. Donegal in the early sixties, and later in the small village of Pettigo on the border of Donegal and County Fermanagh. During his…