Nick Maxwell Tracing Black, Asian, Minority-Ethnic (BAME) and mixed-race people in Ireland c. 1700–1922, part I By Fiona Fitzsimons From at least the eighteenth century there were BAME people in Ireland and Britain. Recent scholarship has begun to ask questions about who these people were, where they came from and how they circulated. From the Classical Age … Read more
What the recently refurbished basement rooms of Newbridge House, Co. Dublin, reveal about servants’ lives in one of Ireland’s ‘big houses’. By Cathal Dowd Smith A country house can be defined as a place of two halves, like the analogy of the swan—a serene upper level kept afloat by a lot of hard work below. … Read more
The West’s awake!—Revolution in Roscommon 1916–1921 Roscommon was one of the first counties to reflect the ‘utter change’ of the post-1916 period, with the election of the first Sinn Féin-backed MP in February 1917. In less than two years that party would win a landslide victory in the general election of 1918, but that mandate … Read more
The dangers posed by an ambitious designated successor. By Matthew McGinty One of the greatest threats to the regime of a Xi Jinping or a Vladimir Putin is succession, because the autocrat will eliminate ambitious and able would-be competitors once he has consolidated power. One way in which a ruler in the past could manage … Read more
By Padraig Yeates In a decade overshadowed by centenaries it is perhaps inevitable that 50th anniversaries are somewhat neglected, particularly south of the border, where the more recent Troubles are often regarded as less relevant to the story of nation-building, or even as too problematic and recent to be addressed in a historical context. Yet, … Read more