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A 1972 photograph of Sean ‘Faeilí’ Ó Catháin (front) and Maidhc ‘Léan’ Ó Guithín (back): two of the three cousins who rowed across Blasket Sound in a storm in 1947 to get a coffin for the deceased Seán Ó Ceárna. The man in the middle is Seán Ó Guithín. Photograph: From the Great Blasket to America – The Last Memoir by an Islander, published by the Collins Press Last word from a lost island?

An Irishman’s Diary: The Blasket School of Literature writes another volume

Contributors to Stories from the Revolution

An Irish Times “Century” supplement

James Goulden’s mother with his father, Sgt Henry Goulden of the RIC. Excluded by history
  • Heritage
  • Eve Morrison
  • May 23, 2013, 10:01

James Goulden, son of an RIC sergeant, devoted his life to challenging how the force was portrayed

Philip Walshe joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and was killed in the Easter Rising. ‘Should the worst befall me . . .’

Philip Walshe was shot dead in the Easter Rising, unaware that a ceasefire had been called

A prisoner under escort in Munster during the Civil War. Photograph: National Library of Ireland Pivotal role in Kerry ‘Troubles’
  • Heritage
  • Richard McElligott
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Tadhg Kennedy played key part in tumultuous years in the Kingdom

Sean Kavanagh (1897-1984), was a confidant of Michael Collins, commandant in the Free State army, and a governor of Mountjoy prison. From spy to governor of Mountjoy
  • Heritage
  • Eoin McVey
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Sean Kavanagh went from espionage for Michael Collins to running Mountjoy

James O’Mara organised the Irish government’s first bond-certificate drive in the US from 1919 to 1921. Over $5.1 million was raised in the campaign. Millionaire helped finance War of Independence

James O’Mara played a vital role in Ireland’s fight for independence by organising a bond drive in the United States that raised $5.1m for the first Dáil

Auntie Moll refused to hand over her cake to the Black and Tans Guarding family treasure from the Black and Tans
  • Heritage
  • Joyce Hickey
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

A culinary act of defiance

Michael McDowell on Ben Bulben in Co Sligo, where his uncle Brian was shot dead by Free State soldiers in 1922. Family of divided loyalties that was reunited in grief
  • Heritage
  • Michael McDowell
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

All my sons’ great-grandparents were dramatically affected by the ‘decade of centenaries’ but Brian Mac Neill particularly epitomises civil war’s tragedy

Kathy Barry ran communications between anti-Treaty commander Liam Lynch in Cork and the Dublin IRA. One woman’s Civil War in Ireland
  • Heritage
  • Eve Morrison
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Kathy Barry refused to play a subsidiary role as the war got under way with battles in the streets of Dublin

Black and Tans and Auxiliaries in a happy mood after surviving an attack on their Dublin hotel in which an attacker was killed. One bloody day in the War of Independence
  • Heritage
  • Conor Mulvagh
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

The violent, unheroic deaths of five young men in three incidents on one day in 1920 say much about the nature of the country’s 'war’

Volunteers drilling near Kimmage, Co Dublin, in 1914. Courtesy of National Museum of Ireland Beyond heroes and villains

‘Stories’ is about the richness and complexity of history’s weave, and the part our relatives all played in it, for good or ill

Michael O’Driscoll with the St Michael’s and John’s Scout troupes, photographed in 1930. Michael O’Driscoll with the St Michael’s and John’s Scout troupes, photographed in 1930. Fighting for the Crown

Michael O’Driscoll was among the many thousands of young men who chose to serve in the British army and fight in the first World War

British soldiers keep watch over the banks of the Liffey from a rooftop vantage point. An enthusiastic volunteer when the Rising came
  • Heritage
  • Padraig Yeates
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Trade unionist Thomas Leahy came home from England to work on the Dublin docks in 1914

The Battle of the Somme - the Attack of the Ulster Division, painted by JP Beadle. Top scholar devoted his life to British army
  • Heritage
  • Mary Jane O'Brien
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Conor and Willie O’Brien answered John Redmond’s call as much for adventure as out of national feeling

Constable James O’Brien (centre), from Kilfergus, Co Limerick, was an unarmed policeman on duty at the Cork Hill entrance to Dublin Castle when he was shot dead. First victim of the Rising

The first man to die in the Easter rebellion was an unarmed RIC Limerickman – James O’Brien

A gathering of the Irish Women Workers’ Union. ‘A tigress in kitten’s fur’
  • Heritage
  • Nell Regan
  • May 23, 2013, 10:00

Helen Molony was held as ‘an extremist of some importance’, a badge of honour for the Abbey actress turned trade union leader

James Hamilton, second Duke of Abercorn, at the signing of the Ulster Covenant in 1912 at the chapel on his Baronscourt estate in Tyrone after inspecting “drilled men” of the local unionist clubs. ‘When Ulster’s position was challenged ...’

William Smyth worked to defend the union from the threat of Home Rule – a fact not lost on his adversaries

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