Nick Maxwell Sir,—Though I question the oft-stated accusation that Arthur Griffith was anti-Semitic, D.R. O’Connor Lysaght appears initially almost magnanimous in his response to Colum Kenny’s letter (HI 24.6, Nov./Dec. 2016) on Arthur Griffith and anti-Semitism by saying that ‘it is possible, certainly, to accept that Griffith’s anti-Semitism diminished as he grew older’ (HI 25.1, Jan./Feb. 2017). … Read more
Making sense of the history of psychiatry in Ireland By Brendan Kelly The history of psychiatry is a history of therapeutic enthusiasm, with all of the triumph and tragedy, hubris and humility that such enthusiasm brings. In Ireland this history is dominated by the vast network of public asylums that commenced in earnest with the … Read more
Ulster’s forgotten Fenians, 1858–1867 By Kerron Ó Luain On the surface, the 1850s were barren years for those with Irish nationalist ideals. The Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Fenian James Mullins wrote in later years that national sentiment ‘in those days, the fifties … was almost extinct in Ireland’. In Ulster, the Ribbon secret societies kept alive … Read more
Frank Roney was recruited into the IRB in Belfast sometime in the early 1860s by Carlow native John Nolan. A moulder by trade, Roney was on the left wing of the Fenian movement. In his later memoir, Irish rebel and California labour leader, he wrote of his disappointment at missing the opportunity to meet Karl … Read more
Ribbonism had its origins in the militant Catholic nationalism of the eighteenth-century Defender secret societies. It continued to survive in the post-Famine years in the form of a benevolent society and it later transitioned into Hibernianism, which in turn allied itself to the Irish Parliamentary Party under Joe Devlin. Though there was some affinity with … Read more