The Trial of Lotta Rae is the tale of a woman who believes in justice. Who becomes notorious as she seeks that justice at an Old Bailey trial. It is set against the tumultuous Suffragette movement and the impending world war. I have always found that time – that precipice – before the first world war and what would come from that horror, so poignant. The era preceding the war was marked by such great optimism. The Liberal British Government, then governing Ireland too, …
Category: History
A few years ago, I was researching an article about mother-and-baby institutions in Ireland for my job at the BBC and had gotten stuck. The assignment felt like wading through …
The irony is not lost on me that I was on the tube to the National Archives in London, of all places, the first time I read the name Edith …

#ReadIrishWomenChallenge22 #RIWC22 It’s April so I’m back once again with the Read Irish Women Challenge – the month where we celebrate outstanding books by Irish women. Starting on April 1st, …
As a toddler, my son was obsessed with Janet & Alan Ahlberg’s Peepo! It’s a day in the life of a baby, but in the background is the London Blitz: …
How different are we from the people who lived a thousand years ago or more? We all experience certain fundamental, universal emotions: grief, love, joy, despair. Sometimes we have to …
The Winter Guest is set in early 1921, at the height of The War of Independence- a messy, brutal war with no front lines, that often placed Irishman against Irishman. …
I grew up in the very beautiful Adelaide Hills in South Australia. It is a place of sweeping slopes of native bushland, pastoral valleys and vineyards; a place where kangaroos, …
Serendipity is a wonderful thing. Without it, I would never have written A Little History of the Future of Dublin. Trevor White, director of the wonderful Little Museum of Dublin, …
Jo Kerrigan tells us how her latest book came about. Over the past twenty years or so, Richard and I have been exploring Ireland’s scenery and history for our books. …
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