Pue's Occurrences has an interesting piece today on the forgotten Irish hero of 1798, Arthur O'Connor:

Although O’Connor was not among the original founders of the United Irish Society, he was the foremost engineer of its transformation from a small reformist propaganda group into a powerful underground revolutionary army.

The other aspect of O’Connor’s centrality to the Rebellion was the part he played in 1796 in the attempt to enlist France’s military support for an Irish revolution. He was neither the first nor the last representative of the United Irishmen to engage in negotiations with the French government, but he was certainly the most effective. Again, O’Connor’s diplomatic role has rarely been examined by historians of the Rebellion, but I have thoroughly documented the fact that O’Connor was the principal Irish negotiator.

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Shane Hegarty, author of The Irish (& Other Foreigners) From the first people to the Poles, is taking part in a panel discussion with Patrick Geoghegan of Newstalk's Talking History and Genetiscist, Dan Bradley at the RIA on 7th December, book tickets here (PS: they are free).

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Tim Pat Coogan has a blog, though to be fair, it seems most entries are by a blog admin rather than his own. Still I was intrigued by this post:

Tim Pat Coogan will be among the many well-known names in Irish and international literature participating in next year’s Ennis Book Club Festival from 5-7 March 2010.  In what is being billed as one of the highlights of the weekend event, Tim Pat and Diarmaid Ferriter will join a ‘Sunday Symposium’ panel discussion on the subject of “Reading History”.

If I had the time, I think I would traveld own for that, might be a lit of fun!

Eoin