The book begins on board the sinking ship. Knowing that women and children are more likely to escape in lifeboats, a mysterious American man entrusts vital government documents to a “patriotic” young American named Jane Finn. It is a draft treaty,…

Refurbished in 1989 and 2015, the diving bell is an imposing reminder of the industrial and engineering history of Dublin Port, as well as of teams of men who worked beneath the waters of the River Liffey. Dublin port was historically hazardous for…

Sailing ships needed large crews and a seafarer tradition became an important source of employment in Wexford in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fishing industry thrived, and with it the prosperity of this coastal community. By 1788…

When Mary Wollstonecraft crossed from Holyhead to Dublin – ‘the best and shortest passage’, she noted – in October 1786, she was lucky. ‘[T]he weather was fine the prospects delightful’, she wrote in a letter to Eliza Bishop, looking back on the…

In September of 1727, Jonathan Swift embarked on a return trip to Ireland from London. Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, Swift was riding high on the success of his recently published Gulliver’s Travels. He was also though anxious for news of…

‘What dreadful weather!’ Dorothy Wordsworth exclaimed on 28 August 1829. She had ‘a hundred fears’ because her brother William was going to cross the Irish Sea from Holyhead the following night.As they would soon find out, ‘three vessels had been…

Mary Delany (1700-1788) was no stranger to crossing the Irish Sea. She had made one trip to Ireland as a young widow in 1731 and, when she later lived in Ireland between 1744 and 1767, she made regular visits back to England. Delany generally made…

Seventy years ago, a young woman from Lismore County Waterford set out with her bicycle on her first trip out of Ireland alone. The trip would take her to England, a ‘Pagan land’ something that did not go unnoticed by her neighbours some of whom were…

When James Joyce left Ireland for exile in continental Europe, he passed through Holyhead, taking the train from there to Euston. The poem W.B. Yeats, already a great success in London, had heard from his friend Lady Gregory about the talented and…