colonial America

‘Days of conversation, centuries of consequence’: Benjamin Franklin at Hillsborough Castle

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on September 18, 2026, 8:45 am

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The Linen Hall Library in Belfast hosted the final event in its five-part series marking the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence. The talk, introduced by Patsy Horton, the library’s cultural programmer, was delivered by David Orr, Castle and Collections Manager at Hillsborough Castle and Gardens. His subject was Benjamin Franklin’s 1771 visit to Ireland and his stay at Hillsborough Castle — a meeting whose consequences, Orr argued, reverberate through three centuries of diplomacy. The series was supported …

Not Scots, and Barely British: Rethinking Ireland’s Founding Role in America

Soapbox on July 4, 2026, 6:54 am

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a group of men in kilts playing a game of bagpipes

This 4th July, both Irish states will fete America’s founding. But the cherished narrative of Presbyterian Scots-Irish frontiersmen as the backbone of the Revolution obscures the Gaelic Irish written out of the record, the Protestant migration unionists prefer to forget, and the political convenience shaping how both traditions remember.