Maurice Whelan

EDWARD Hollywood, born in 1814, was a master silk weaver from Dublin whose artisan skills and political convictions were instrumental in the creation of the Irish tricolour. While Thomas Francis Meagher is often celebrated as the face of the flag, Hollywood was the craftsman who brought the symbol to life using the finest French silk.

BORN in a Dublin cellar in 1776, Francis Higgins would swindle his way from lowly messenger boy all the way up to the top echelons of Dublin society, eventually becoming owner of the newspaper the Freemans Journal.

LONG before the fictional exploits of Dumas’ Three Musketeers, the fishing village of Rush, County Dublin, produced its own trio of real life adventurers whose story rivals any Hollywood epic. At the centre of it stood Luke Ryan, an Irish privateer and smuggler whose audacious career during the American War of Independence made him one of the most notorious raiders ever to prowl British waters.