Donal Fallon: The bike ride that links a chain of events from Buenos Aires to the roof of the GPO in 1916

One of my prized possessions is a first edition of the classic Irish travel book, Rambles in Éirinn, which was published in 1907. It’s a little battered, and with plenty of notes in the margins, because whoever owned the book before me had perhaps taken it with them on their own ramble. It was a pleasant surprise recently to see a new edition in book shops.

Before Dervla Murphy or Manchán Magan, there was William Bulfin, who embarked on a great journey across Ireland on a bicycle he called his "Wexford Wheel". He first took to the roads in 1902 and returned two years later to see more of Ireland. Produced by the bicycle manufacturer Pierce in the Model County, the bicycle took Bulfin on a journey of – he claimed – about 3,000 miles.