“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”―Rudyard Kipling. I love visiting Museums. You’ll always hear Writers and Storytellers say that stories, in whatever form, bind us and that we can only really learn how…

The veneration of saints and their holy wells has a long tradition across Wales. The wells around Holyhead are no different. Their former use and importance reflects centuries old traditions and changes in attitudes towards life and folk…

One of the most fascinating and certainly the largest objects on display at the Museum is the Franta Belsky mural that once graced the Forward Lounge on the Holyhead ship MV St Columba. The vessel was named after the sixth century Irish monk who…

The Duke of Northumberland lifeboat was revolutionary in that she used water jets instead of propellers. Water was drawn in through the forward section of hull and forced out at great pressure through the vents in the side of the boat. This made it…

Although Dewi Sant, or Saint David, has been recognised as the Welsh patron saint at least since the twelfth century, public celebrations of his feast day are a fairly recent tradition. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the habit of patriotic…

The official first flight from Britain to Ireland took place on 22 April, 1912 in a Bleriot monoplane piloted by Denys Corbett Wilson, who flew from Fishguard in Wales to Enniscorthy in Wexford. But two years earlier another attempt came within a…

By October 1918, it had become apparent that the First World War was slowly drawing to a close. It was not yet foreseeable whether it would be over by Christmas, a hope annually revived since 1914, but an end to the fighting lay in the near future.…

There are around 29 martello towers dotted around the bay; coastal, circular buildings with curved, nearly-windowless walls. Some have been taken up as unique seaside homes or museums, but many are unused and inaccessible. Most were built in…

At 5 o’clock on the morning of 31 January 2020, a handful of reporters and press photographers huddled in the pre-dawn rain at Dublin Port, where a group of senior Fine Gael politicians had donned yellow high-viz vests for a photo op. Then Tánaiste…

The race to be the first to cross the Irish Sea by hot air balloon would turn out to be a family affair. After James Sadler’s high-profile attempt failed in October 1812, the baton was taken up by his 20-year-old aeronaut son, Windham Sadler, in…