AFTER THE FORMATION LAST YEAR OF A GOVERNMENT INCORPORATING INDEPENDENT MINISTERS AND RELIANT ON INDEPENDENT TDS TO AN UNPRECEDENTED EXTENT, IT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO LOOK BACK ON A CELEBRATED INDEPENDENT COUNCILLOR AND TD WHO DECIDED THE FATE OF A GOVERNMENT By Patrick Maume Seán D. Dublin Bay Loftus will be remembered, especially by … Read more
IN 1968 FUTURE RED HAND COMMANDO FRANKIE CURRY, A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW OF IMPRISONED UVF FIGUREHEAD GUSTY SPENCE, WOULD INADVERTENTLY CAUSE THE BIRTH OF A LOYALIST YOUTH SUBCULTURE THAT WOULD GREATLY INFLUENCE EVENTS DURING THE VIOLENT EARLY 1970S IN BELFAST. By Gareth Mulvenna Frankie Curry and some of his Rangers-supporting friends were in a Shankill street … Read more
DOCUMENTS OUTLINING OFFICIAL PLANNING FOR THE STATE’S TRANSITION TO WORLD WAR III By Michael Kennedy The impact of a ten-megaton hydrogen bomb on Dublin would be cataclysmic. A 1958 Department of Defence map showed concentric circles of devastation moving out from a notional city centre ‘ground burst’. South to Dundrum, west to the Phoenix Park … Read more
THE ACCELERATION OF CHANGE AND THE INTENSIFIED PACE OF LIFE HAVE MADE THE WORLD OF EDWARD CAHILL SEEM A LONG WAY OFF, EVEN THOUGH IT IS STILL WITHIN LIVING MEMORY By Thomas J. Morrissey SJ In the 1920s and 1930s Edward Cahill’s name and writings were well known and his influence was felt among many … Read more
By Fiona Fitzsimons Early attempts to make medical provision for the mentally ill in Ireland were very disjointed. The earliest asylums for the insane were in the cities of Dublin and Cork, under the aegis of the House of Industry. As early as 1728 the Dublin House of Industry set aside cells for the insane … Read more