Irish History
-
‘A kindhearted savage of a man’: Arthur Wills Blundell Sandys Trumbull Windsor Hill, Earl of Hillsborough (1812-68)
Today (6 August) marks the anniversary of both the birth and death of the Irish MP Arthur Wills Blundell Sandys Trumbull Windsor Hill, Earl of Hillsborough (and from 1845 Marquess of Downshire). Hillsborough‘s repeated physical altercations implicated him in two…
-
Catholics in the Commons after emancipation
Today (13 April) marks the anniversary of the Roman Catholic Relief Act gaining royal assent in 1829, which removed many of the barriers restricting Roman Catholics from sitting in Parliament. However, as Dr Philip Salmon of the Victorian Commons explores,…
-
The Southwells – from administrators to an ancient peerage
In the latest blog for the Georgian Lords, Dr Stuart Handley charts the history of the Southwell family, from their origins in Gloucestershire and as administrators in Ireland to their ultimate inheritance of one of the senior peerages in the…
-
‘There is not a Minister on this Side, that knows any Thing I either write or intend, excepting the Master of the Rolls and Sir George Radcliffe’: Sir Thomas Wentworth’s reliance on his cabal in the Irish Parliaments of Charles I’s reign
Ahead of next Tuesday’s Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Dr Charlotte Brownhill of the Open University. On 14 November Charlotte will discuss the management of Irish parliaments in the 1630s and 1640s. The seminar takes place between…
-
Political practices: new directions in political history in the long nineteenth century
Continuing our series reflecting on the Organise! Organise! Organise! conference hosted by Durham University and supported by the History of Parliament, guest blogger Dr Helen Sunderland, a historian based at the University of Oxford, discusses the new directions of research that were presented…
-
Acts of Recovery: archival reconstruction in the digital age reflection
In September 2023, the UK Parliamentary Archives hosted an event to mark their collaboration with the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. In this blog, our Public Engagement Assistant, Kirsty O’Rourke, reflects on the event. To mark the collaboration between the Virtual…
-
The Early Career of Hugh Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh
In the latest blog for the Georgian Lords, Dr Stuart Handley re-examines the early career of Hugh Boulter, briefly bishop of Bristol before being posted to Ireland, offering some corrections to his life story. Thomas Lindsay, archbishop of Armagh, died…
-
Sinn Féin: A 20th Century History of Party Splits
During the 20th century, Sinn Féin officially split three times and from these splits emerged some of the most central parties in Irish politics. In this second blog of a two-blog series, our Public Engagement Assistant, Kirsty O’Rourke, discusses the reasons…
-
The origins of Sinn Féin
In a series of two blogs, our Public Engagement Assistant, Kirsty O’Rourke, will discuss the 20th century history of Sinn Féin. In this first blog, Kirsty looks at the origins of the party and its founder, Arthur Griffith. Throughout the…
-
MPs and the coronation of Edward VII
The members of the House of Lords have traditionally been far more involved with coronations than their Commons counterparts, and for the coronation of Edward VII it was Viscount Esher who worked closely with the king to plan the ceremony…
-
Mo Mowlam and the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement
25 years ago this month the basis for peace in Northern Ireland – the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement – was signed after years of painstaking negotiations. Although nothing would have been achieved without the hard work of politicians and activists of…
-
1642 – The earl of Leicester’s ‘Annus Horribilis’
In the first Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments blog of 2023, guest blogger Dr Fraser Dickinson explores the torn allegiances of the earl of Leicester in 1642… … I am environed by such contradictions, as I can neither get from them [Parliament…