Patrick Duffy

Such a shame to lose historic titles that have offered an invaluable insight into regional politics / social change for so many years. The Standard maintained an admirably high quality of journalism in recent years despite immense challenges to local media. Goes out with its head high 😢

4/ Past editions of the paper from 1839 to 1871 can be read on britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk and past editions from 1885 to 2004 can be read on irishnewsarchive.com

3/ Charles Gavan Duffy, on p. 41 of the first volume of his My life in two hemispheres (New York, 1898) noted that when the ill Arthur Wellington Holmes asked him to guest edit the Standard, he selected the 'local Orange news' from the latest papers. Something the extract from today's paper omits!

2/ I argued that the Standard was founded to act as a vehicle of politicisation to craft an identity based on Ulster as a Protestant territory. Many of its early editorials stressed the need of Protestants in Counties Monaghan, Armagh and Cavan to defend Ulster from O'Connellism

1/ Sad news from Monaghan this morning that the Northern Standard is to cease publication. I have written about the first few years of the Standard for my PhD thesis. Its inaugural editorial on 12 January 1839 promised to act as a 'watchtower' for the Protestants of Ulster'

Fighting Farney – Frank McNally on the battle for his hometown’s ‘western front’ Carrickmacross's lopsided pub distribution seems to be indirect effect of a deeper division

Fighting Farney – Frank McNally on the battle for his hometown’s ‘western front’

The Orange Order has just elected its 21st Grand Master. Here's a book I've edited and introduced on and from its early history.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Sounds like an interesting project

Finally getting the chance to begin reading @marcmulholland.bsky.social's Rising of the moon

RTÉ to boycott Eurovision Song Contest over Israel Ireland will not participate in next year's Eurovision Song Contest, and it will not be broadcast by RTÉ, after the European Broadcasting Union confirmed today that Israel will be allowed to take part...

This is the correct call. It should have been taken last year, but fair play to @rte.ie and the Dutch, Spanish and Slovenian broadcasters for doing the right thing.

RTÉ to boycott Eurovision Song Contest over Israel

www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

Seanad suspended in row over extended vote deadline to enable Coalition Senators reach chamber Doors should have been locked at usual deadline time, says Independent Lynn Ruane

I was studying in the main reading room of the @nlireland.bsky.social this evening, and I remember thinking to myself that there were quite a few division bells that I could hear from next door.
@irishtimes.com
www.irishtimes.com/politics/oir...

Documents on Irish Foreign Policy - Volume 2 03/12/1925 - Agreement Amending and Supplementing the Articles of Agreement and for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland (1921)

#OTD 100 years ago, the UK, NI and Free State govts agreed to quash the Boundary Commission: www.difp.ie/volume-2/192.... As my article argues, this agreement doesn't negate the strong evidence that the Free State took the commission seriously: muse.jhu.edu/article/956691
@difp-ria.bsky.social

A tweet series from my book: This one on O'Connellism and the triumph of conservatism in Protestant Ulster.

More crimes committed by Israel. How so many in the West continue to support this terrorist state is beyond me.

2/ See his @ausdictionarybiog.bsky.social profile here: adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gr.... I'm interested in exploring in future if James and other Protestant and Catholic convicts or settlers in Australia brought with them any identity associated with Ulster and if this affected their politics.

1/ Indeed. Charles Gavan Duffy declared that there was 'generally an idle, ignorant, half-bred cub in every village in Ulster who looks up to Sam Gray as his role model’ (The Nation, 6 May 1843). His son James, a member of the Tasmanian Parliament named his home 'Ulster Lodge'.

Sam Gray had his conviction for a non-capital felony quashed by the House of Lords in 1844. He was denied a peremptory challenge against one of his jurors, as defendants in England had the right to do. Now it seems that most defendants in England won't have a jury at all! www.bbc.com/news/article...

New vacancy (Junior Research Fellowship) working on the Northern Ireland Peace Process at the Quill Project in Oxford!

Based at Pembroke College with funding from the Carnegie Foundation of New York.

See details here: www.pmb.ox.ac.uk/vacancy/juni...

I could order a file for you on Thursday if that's time enough? I'm afraid that I'll be away from Dublin tomorrow and Wednesday

I agree. However, Monaghan County Museum, despite moving to a new multi-million euro facility, can only display a fraction of their collection. Unfortunately, the majority of their collection is in storage for most of the time.

The door of Rossmore Castle, the Westenra family seat outside Monaghan town was also on display. The castle was built by the second Baron Rossmore in 1827 but was demolished in 1974 due to dry rot damage.

Stephen Farrell's @histparl.bsky.social and Stephen Ball's forthcoming @victoriancommons.bsky.social profiles of Rossmore mention his bagpiping. To Ball, it was evidence of
Rossmore's 'strong sense of Irishness'. Farrell's profile can be read here: www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-...

Yesterday I visited Monaghan County Museum for the first time since they moved the new Peace Campus last year. My favourite item exhibited was the bagpipes of William Henry Westenra, third Baron Rossmore, much about whom I have researched and written for my thesis.

Previous issues of the Clogher Record can be viewed on @jstor.bsky.social: www.jstor.org/journal/clog...

The photograph shows Gray's public house, the York Hotel on Ballybay's Main Street

I'll be giving a talk on the political activities and criminal trials of the Ballybay Orangeman Sam Gray at the AGM of the Clogher Historical Society at the Monaghan Peace Campus on 26 November at 7.30pm. The latest issue of the society's journal, the Clogher Record will be launched on the night

Dundalk IT to get university college status after agreeing merger with Queen’s of Belfast Students enrolling at the Louth campus in September 2026 will graduate with a Queen’s degree

Dundalk IT to get university college status after agreeing merger with Queen’s of Belfast

cambridgeblog.org/2024/09/ulst...

‘Confirmation of the People’s Rights’: commemorating the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 - The History of Parliament For many, the beginning of November means the advent of longer nights as the year winds down to Christmas. Some may still enjoy attending firework displays

William of Orange (King William III) was born #OnThisDay 1650 (new style/4 Nov. old style). His successful invasion in 1688 proved a vital turning point in the development of the constitution. 100 years on, though, even fans were unsure how to mark the event:
historyofparliament.com/2025/11/06/c...

Sometimes I think the Victorians really did take too much laudanum in their tea