The kidnapping by the local chief, O'Connor Faly, of Henry VIII's governor, Lord Delvin, in 1528 plunged the Dublin administration into crisis. Delvin was the most obvious – but not entirely surprising – casualty of an ingenious but flawed experiment by the king, aimed at bolstering as governor a reliable border baron by harnessing to his governorship the manraed of the traditional ruling magnate, so saving the cost to the king of a border garrison. Delvin's weak administration underlined the low priority accorded to Irish affairs at Henry VIII's court; but even after its predictable collapse, the king disclaimed responsibility. Against advice at court and in Ireland, the king then insisted on reappointing a previously unsuccessful governor, thus simply compounding the difficulties faced by the Dublin administration.

This article examines how the handling of Irish affairs at the civil-war court was observed, commented upon, and probably influenced, by a man who had been at the heart of Irish government during the previous decade. It argues that the presence of Sir George Radcliffe, arguably Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford's closest advisor, at the royalist court in Oxford was significant in a number of respects. His surviving correspondence reveals the extent to which he was able to advise and support the newly-appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, the marquis of Ormond. His letters also cast light on the politics of the civil-war court, in particular on how he, as an essentially second-level figure, worked flexibly with both secretaries of state. This article argues that Radcliffe's discussions with secretary of state, George Lord Digby, provided an important means by which Strafford's influence could make itself felt at the Oxford court, particularly during the 1644 negotiations with the Confederate commissioners. The pursuit of forceful, contentious policies by the former Irish administration and its contemptuous attitude towards critics, however, ensured that Radcliffe's presence at Oxford was probably unwelcome to many at court and failed to advance his career.

The year 1857 saw the first of the great riot commissions which provided much source material for Belfast history. It should be read as a continuation of the street conflict of that summer. Careful reading shows the skill with which the weak Catholic/Liberal alliance of the city managed the flow of witnesses and the naiveté of the Orange/Protestant lawyers. The Catholic/Liberal side ‘won’ the inquiry, achieving their aim of convincing the Dublin government that the local police force was ineffective if not sectarian and that Orange Order culture and evangelical street preaching was responsible for the disorder. Practical outcomes were limited. Resources were limited due to demands in other parts of Ireland and the process of taking first-class troops from Ireland to deal with the Indian mutiny. Considered in light of theories of ‘civil society’, the court was a means of countering the imperfections of representative government. Considered in the context of Ireland as a whole, events demonstrated the weakness of the Dublin authorities, their ignorance of Belfast and the importance of the resident magistrate. Much was concealed from the inquiry. The following months revealed evidence of an active Ribbon-style organisation, and the animosity of the local police and the constabulary. Attention to working class sectarianism diverted attention from elite failure to manage the class relationships of a fractured civil society.

The marquess of Ormond's surrender of Dublin to the forces of the English parliament in the summer of 1647 has been seen as marking the demise of the Church of Ireland, with ministers given the choice of adopting the Presbyterian Directory for Public Worship or fleeing the country. This article examines the survival of the church thanks to the benign influence of the governor of Dublin, Colonel Michael Jones, and his brother, Dr Henry Jones, bishop of Clogher. Under Michael Jones's rule the Book of Common Prayer continued to be used, ministers were appointed to vacancies, and clerical networks continued to operate. It was only after the Cromwellian invasion in August 1649, and the replacement of Jones by the Cromwellian hard-liner, Colonel John Hewson, that the church was forced out of business – a process completed with its formal abolition by the autumn of 1650.

On the Ulster borderlands, the years 1849 to 1852 represented a crucial period in the development of a correlation between agrarian violence and constitutional political agitation. The emergence of the Tenant League in the region from 1848, along with a parallel clandestine violence from 1849, foreshadowed the better-known Land War of the latter part of the nineteenth century. This article analyses the hitherto unacknowledged interplay between agrarian violence and constitutional politics in south Armagh and surrounding districts. In so doing, it emphasises the years in the immediate wake of the Great Famine as being critical in the long-term development of more politicised forms of collective action. Such methods, in turn, would ultimately be deployed to the detriment of the landed ascendancy in subsequent decades.

This article explores the myriad of health hazards and dangers faced by industrial workers in Belfast between 1870 and 1914, as well as the efforts made by reformers and legislators to protect them. The article uses a variety of official sources to demonstrate the varying and distinctly gendered experience of men, women, and children working in the factories, mills, and shipyards of the city, as well as the gendered nature of the legislation put in place in this period. The article argues that the societal norms and expectations that informed legislation contributed to the gender gap that emerged in protective legislation. Female workers were seen in the same category as children and were protected paternalistically by a state still grappling with the changing position of women in an industrialising society, while men were expected to face ‘bravely’ the dangers of industrial work with little or no state intervention.

The Gaelic League was founded in 1893 with the aim of reviving the Irish language, as well as promoting home-grown industries and social reform. By the turn of the century, it had become one of the most important cultural organisations in Ireland. This article studies a central element of the league's ideology and praxis, albeit one that has thus far received little attention: its promotion of a specifically nationalist understanding of Irish space. ‘Space’ was a key trope for the Gaelic League and was linked to a number of other dominant nationalist concerns: state sovereignty, race, gender and modernity. Moreover, this article argues that a focus on ‘space’ allows for a better comparative understanding of Irish nationalism, since similar spatial logics were at play in other late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century national movements both in Europe and in the (post)colonial world.

This article examines the importance of physical culture systems for Irishmen seeking to enter the Royal Irish Constabulary (R.I.C), and those already operating within it, in the period 1900 to 1914. R.I.C. entrance requirements encouraged some men to alter their bodies physically to meet standardised body measurements for police officers. Simultaneously, a growing body of literature urged men to reflect upon their stature and, if found deficient, to undertake courses of physical culture. This situation, it is argued, led to a valorisation of muscularity and strength as foundational to an officer's physical presence and strength of character. To further demonstrate the relationship between physical culture and the R.I.C., the article also examines efforts by members within the force to associate strong bodies with broader masculine identities related to courage, integrity and bravery. The article begins with a brief discussion of the R.I.C., before examining the historiography of Irish masculinity and police masculinities more generally. Next, the article examines the importance of physical culture for those seeking entry into the constabulary, with reference to the Irish Times’s physical culture column, before finally examining the efforts by existing members to strengthen the R.I.C.’s relationship with physical culture. In both instances, involving aspirant and actual members of the R.I.C., the article argues that conceptions of masculinity in the constabulary echoed broader social messages and came to equate strong physiques with wider assumptions about police integrity and character.

This article examines the career of the Irish Presbyterian minister and member of the Westminster parliament, James Little, as a case study of Presbyterian clerical responses to the Second World War in Northern Ireland. Establishing a more detailed narrative of contemporary interpretations of the conflict improves our understanding of the functions of religious institutions during the period. It demonstrates that Presbyterian church leaders were largely enthusiastic supporters of the war, employing theological language while promoting the agenda of unionist politics. By juxtaposing clerical politico-religious support for the war with their commitment to conservative moral standards, the article assesses the strength with which these views were held, thereby adding to our knowledge of Presbyterianism in the 1940s. The article also situates the Northern Ireland Presbyterian view of the war within the context of the United Kingdom.

The 1924–5 fundraising tour in Australia by republican activists, Kathleen Barry and Linda Kearns, although successful, has received little attention from historians, more focused on the controversial tour of Fr Michael O'Flanagan and J. J. O'Kelly the previous year. While O'Flanagan and O'Kelly's tour ended with their deportation, Barry and Kearns successfully navigated the different agendas of Irish-Australian political and social groups to organise speaking engagements and raise considerable funds for the Irish Republican Prisoners’ Dependants' Fund. The women were experienced republican activists, however on their Australian tour they placed themselves firmly in traditional female patriotic roles, as nurturers and supporters of men fighting for Irish freedom. This article analyses their strategic use of gendered expectations to allay suspicions about their political agenda to successfully raise money and negotiate with political and ecclesiastical leaders.

This article explores the contraception campaigns of Irishwomen United (I.W.U.) and their offshoot, the Contraception Action Programme (CAP), in the Republic of Ireland from 1975 to 1981. It draws on ten oral history interviews with former members of I.W.U. and CAP conducted by the author, in addition to feminist magazines, newspaper sources and the Roisin Conroy/Attic Press archive. For Irish feminists, the issue of class was paramount to their contraception campaigns while, in common with their counterparts in the United States, they were also concerned about the increasing medicalisation of women's bodies and the potential health risks of the contraceptive pill, commonly prescribed as a ‘cycle regulator’ in Ireland. Fundamentally, I.W.U. and CAP members believed in a women's movement that allowed for the equal distribution of sexual knowledge and access to contraception. In this way, they foregrounded the connection between health and economic rights. Through their demonstrations, meetings and service provision, in unconventional spaces such as shops, markets, community centres and caravans, they challenged not only the law, but also the authority of both religious patriarchy and medical expertise in Ireland. Through an exploration of the activities of I.W.U./CAP, this article will contribute to understandings of campaigns around contraception and, with my commitment to profiling the experiences of ‘rank and file’ women, it will highlight class inequalities and concerns surrounding the medicalisation of women's bodies to a larger extent than has been done before. It also seeks to show the importance of informal women's networks in providing access to contraception and information about contraception pre-legalisation. Moreover, the article seeks to further elucidate the contribution of Irish grassroots organisations which have received limited historical attention.

By using the League of Nations and United Nations as case studies, this article identifies the women working at the diplomatic level in the Irish Department of External Affairs (D.E.A.) in the period 1923–76. Drawing on gender analysis, the article assesses where men and women were positioned in Irish diplomacy and asks if the role of women in the D.E.A. was shaped by a gendered viewpoint. It argues that there were more opportunities for women within the United Nations than the League of Nations and it questions if these increased diplomatic opportunities were reflective of women's changing status within the D.E.A. in the period under investigation. Overall, the article offers a new perspective on the conduct of Irish foreign policy between 1923 and 1976.

This article examines a letter from Cavan's political elite to the lord deputy and council in July 1629 in protest against the imposition of charges relating to the Graces. The letter, with its graphic description of a county gripped by famine, tells us much about conditions on the ground at this time. What is most interesting about this petition, however, are the more than one hundred signatures appended to it. The names include a mix of both Gaelic Irish and British settlers and indicate a plantation county whose two communities were prepared to work with each other, on this occasion at least, in order to achieve a common goal.

This article examines the sole extant and complete set of signed witness statements for an Irish witchcraft trial. These testimonies were given at Florence Newton's trial for witchcraft at Cork assizes in September 1661, and were signed by the presiding judge, Sir William Aston. The Aston manuscript has been annotated and transcribed in its full, original form for the first time, providing historians with a unique document with which to explore one of the few Irish witchcraft trials. This article also provides suggestions for new ways of looking at the case, and more importantly demonstrates that Newton was not, as once thought, put to death for witchcraft under the 1586 Irish Witchcraft Act but died during her trial. Furthermore, taken in the context of early modern European witchcraft, the case is shown to be an important example of a witch trial occurring in a highly gendered, contested, post-conflict society.