Tag: death

The Miner Who Overthrew a Dictator

The winter air was frozen during a huge miner’s demonstration taking place in a Timisoara square. It was December 17, 1989. Thousands of unpaid Romanian miners listened to yet another Marxist diatribe urging patience. Platitudes from the Communist leadership grouped on a government building balcony droned over the stone-faced coalminers.

Coffin Ships and the Orphans of Ireland

During the Irish famine (1845 – 1849), an estimated 500,000 people were dispossessed of their cottages. Unscrupulous landlords used two methods to remove destitute tenants. The first involved applying for a legal judgment against the male head of a family owing back-rent. After the local barrister pronounced judgment, the man would be thrown in jail and his wife and children evicted. A ‘notice to appear’ was usually enough to cause most pauper families to flee and they were handed out by the hundreds.