Nick Maxwell Sir,—I had hoped that, as a result of the manner in which recent years’ public health measures have highlighted a natural discrepancy between politicians’ democratic ideals and the policies their governments may pursue in an emergency, we would hear no more about Michael Collins’s supposed formation of a ‘military dictatorship’ during the Civil War. The … Read more
Sir,—I wish to respond to Margaret Urwin’s letter in the last issue (HI 30.3, May/June 2022) on behalf of the Justice for the Forgotten/Pat Finucane Centre organisations. Now that the Legacy and Reconciliation Bill has been published, we believe it is all the more important that people understand what we are advocating in the Truth … Read more
BY DONAL FALLON AGAINST THE IMAGE Many column inches have been given over to the colourisation of historical images. To some they represent a positive engagement with the past, while others maintain that they are a distortion of historical sources. A new exhibition at the Ulster Museum reminds us that there are other ways in … Read more
On 22 June 1922 Field Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, former Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Unionist MP for North Down, was assassinated outside his London home in Eaton Square. The anti-Treaty IRA were blamed and six days later, under pressure from the British, Michael Collins ordered the bombardment of the Four Courts, the … Read more
Last year the National Archives’ Commemoration Programme marked significant events of 1921, culminating in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. A major exhibition, ‘The Treaty, 1921: Records from the Archives’, was previewed in the British Academy in London on 11 October and opened in Dublin Castle on 6 December 2021. Planning for the exhibition began … Read more