Feb 7, 2026
During the medieval period, the most prominent legal family in County Clare was the O’Davoren, or Ó Duibhdábhoireann, a minor Gaelic gentry sept who ran a celebrated school of fénechas (native law) at Cahermacnaghten in the Burren. As well as being famous jurists and...
Feb 25, 2023
Hull was a piratical cad from the early days when he was engaged in smuggling and piracy operations off the coast of Devon as early as 1604. So it was a case of poacher-turned-gamekeeper when, during the reign of James I of England, the English Admiralty appointed him...
Feb 9, 2023
The FitzGeralds rose from the ashes with the remarkable return of the Wizard Earl of Kildare in the 1550s. Despite a litany of premature deaths, his successors managed to ride out the turmoil of the 17th century intact, extending Kilkea Castle in County Kildare along...
Feb 7, 2023
In the 1420s, Kilkea Castle in County Kildare was considerably extended and improved by the Earls of Kildare who would become the most influential dynasty in Ireland by the end of the century. With the Tudors came a sensational but disastrous rebellion that would...
Oct 19, 2022
Fifteen Maguires were crowned as Kings of Fermanagh between 1264 and 1589. The region was, by and large, stable for those three centuries. The Maguires were exceptionally progressive, their households replete with historians, poets and learned men. They were also...
