Ireland

Topic description and stories

A treasure trove of unseen writing by Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney reveals a vital creative friendship

14 Nov 2020

A unique archive acquired by Pembroke College Cambridge transforms our understanding of the two poets, showing how they drew career-defining...

National Library of Ireland, Manuscript G11 403a10. Image, Irish Scripts on Screen www.isos.dias.ie

Lost Irish words rediscovered, including the word for ‘oozes pus'

30 Aug 2019

Researchers from Cambridge and Queen’s University Belfast have identified and defined 500 Irish words, many of which had been lost, and unlocked the...

An 1826 painting of the Battle of Clontarf by the Irish artist, Hugh Frazer, Credit: Isaacs Art Centre, via Wikimedia Commons

Ireland’s Troy?

23 Apr 2014

As Ireland marks the millennium of the Battle of Clontarf – portrayed as a heroic encounter between Irish and Vikings which defined the nation’s...

Headland history

31 Jan 2014

The medieval monk Jocelin of Furness has been little studied by historians - now a project investigating his work and its context is transforming...

Irish tenants are evicted and their homes torn down under the supervision of troops

Whose fault is famine? What the world failed to learn from 1840s Ireland

19 Jul 2011

A new book by a Cambridge University academic revisits one of the worst famines in recorded history. The Irish Famine of the 1840s had terrible...

A slice of Cumbria’s medieval past

01 Jul 2011

Jocelin of Furness was one of the most significant writers to emerge from England’s north-west during the Middle Ages, but historians have tended to...

John Speed's proof map of Cambridgeshire

Mapping the origins of a masterpiece

21 Apr 2011

Published 400 years ago, the first comprehensive atlas of Great Britain is being celebrated by Cambridge University Library, home to one of only five...