Nick Maxwell When John O’Donoghue, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, recently announced the composition of the new Irish Film Board, he commented that ‘Film has a unique ability to convey to a wide audience the stories and atmosphere of any local community’. Although his recognition of the importance of film not just as a means of … Read more
BH: Tell us a little about your background. PH: I’m a Newfoundlander, which no doubt gave me some insight into sectarianism and nationalism, thanks to denominational education and our status as a former country and generally pissed-off part of Canada. Newfoundlanders have a strong sense of identity, and there are Newfoundland clubs, bars and newspapers … Read more
On 16–19 January 1841, as the Whig government of Lord Melbourne tottered towards collapse, Daniel O’Connell visited Belfast to address a Repeal meeting. He was accompanied by the Protestant Repealers Robert Dillon Browne (MP for Mayo) and Thomas Steele (the ‘Head Pacificator’), and by his son-in-law Charles O’Connell (formerly MP for Kerry). O’Connell came at … Read more
Few periods of history have produced such a wealth of remarkable stories as the heroic age of expeditions to the Antarctic about 100 years ago. Little more than two decades of exploration threw up a series of powerful dramas that encapsulated the very essence of discovery—endurance, courage and tragedy. In the thick of it all … Read more
After seven decades of ideological, political and economic confrontation, focused on Europe but extending throughout the world—and played out by proxy in Africa and elsewhere—one whole system collapsed within a few years, and by the end of 1991 the communist system had expired in Russia, the land of its birth. Very few predicted such a … Read more