History & Culture
Kings, clearances, monks and the long memory of the Celtic nations.
From the mouth of the lion: Culloden - graveyard of the clans
Alex Campbell traces the road to Drummossie Moor, where the Jacobite army broke on 16 April 1746, and finds his own clan on the government side.
Wales outpacing Scotland in move toward nationhood
In May 1998 the Government of Wales Bill was ahead of Scotland's, Plaid Cymru wanted a cabinet and its own oath, and Senedd was one possible name.
The origin of the Scots: Lost in the mists of time
Were the Scots really Irishmen who never went home? Alex Campbell weighed the Dál Riata tradition against the sceptics, from Scota and Fergus Mór to Kenneth MacAlpin.
The Celts: The people history forgot
A long, opinionated 1998 tour of Celtic Europe, from the sack of Rome and the Druids to Hadrian's Wall and Ireland, the one place Rome never reached.
Scotland's blackest days: The Clearances
From Culloden to the Year of the Burning: a 1998 account of how the Highland chiefs traded their people for sheep, and where the emptied glens sent them.
Nine who counted: Would they do it all again?
Tommy Symons retold the pub-wall tale of nine Irish rebels condemned in 1848 who rose to high office abroad. We checked it against the record.
Making the Book of Kells: When art was a labor of love and bookmaking no simple task
A Cork art dealer selling licensed prints in New York talked us through how monks on Iona and at Kells made the most famous Gospel book in Ireland.
Making the Book of Kells: Symbolism tells the stories
Peacocks, beard-pulling men and rats fighting over the Eucharist: how the Kells monks turned the everyday animals and quarrels of their world into gospel lessons.
Making the Book of Kells: ...But before they could start
Before a line was painted, calves had to become vellum. A 1995 sidebar on the skins, and on a $6,250 set of licensed Kells prints.
Notes on Irish history: Interesting discoveries make for a 'potpourri'
Two trips to Ireland yield a column of finds: the Slattery name, a royal visit that sank Muckross, a gentlemanly siege at Enniscorthy, and Aughrim.
A tribute to bravery: Irish Brigade remembered at Civil War battlefield
In 1995 the National Park Service approved what it said would be the last monument at Antietam, honouring the Irish Brigade’s charge at Bloody Lane.
Step back to the Civil War: Battle returns to Gettysburg
In July 1995, 1,500 reenactors, the director of the film Gettysburg and the men of a modern 116th Pennsylvania Irish Brigade company refought the battle.
A gamble that paid off: 'Major' change averted in Britain
In July 1995 John Major dared his party to sack him, won, and reshuffled his cabinet. The victory bought him less than two years.