Vintage engraving of young girl pour her sick mother a cup of tea, 19th Century

The Dangers of Tea Drinking

In nineteenth century Ireland, tea could be a symbol of cultivation and respectability or ill health and chaos, depending on who was drinking it.
A Trappist monk in the cloisters of a monastery in County Waterford, Ireland, 1935

The Irish Fasting Tradition

Particularly before the Second Vatican Council (a.k.a. Vatican II), fasting was part of the Catholic calendar. No one took it more seriously than the Irish.
Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40690/40690-h/40690-h.htm

Walking Streetlamps for Hire in Seventeenth-Century London

Much in the same way we hail cabs in cities today, a medieval Londoner could hail a torch-bearer (a link-boy) to light their way home from a night on the town.
Blue and red flashing police lights

The Roots of Modern Police Work

The beginnings of modern police work have roots in the colonial experience in Ireland.