IRELAND'S first railway was opened between Dublin and Kingstown—now Dún Laoghaire—in 1834, just nine years after the pioneering Stockton and Darlington opened for traffic. The Irish line made history as the world’s first commuter railway. Steam-powered, it was built to the standard British gauge of four feet eight-and-a-half inches between the rails and today’s modern, electric DART trains still use the route on their way to and from Greystones.

IN 1816, landscape painter John Knox, travelled the 10 miles or so from Glasgow, to paint the Clyde from Faifley and Duntocher—two small settlements which were part of the parish of Old Kilpatrick. It was an early autumn scene, a rolling wooded hillside with a textile mill in the distance. It was pleasant, green and largely unoccupied. By the mid 1840s it was an entirely different picture.

WHEN Argentina and Leo Messi won the 2022 World Cup, one of the bright new stars of the team was Alexis MacAllister