Nick Maxwell By Joe Cully David Brundage, Irish nationalists in America: the politics of exile 1798–1998 (Oxford University Press, £22.29 hb, 312pp, ISBN 9780195331776). David Doolin, Transnational revolutionaries: the Fenian invasion of Canada, 1866 (Peter Lang, €30 pb, 350pp, ISBN 9783035307894). Rose Doyle, Heroes of Jadotville: the soldiers’ story (New Island Books, €15.95 pb, 380pp, ISBN 9781848404885). … Read more
Nationwide, RTÉ1, 29 June, 1 July Heroes of the Somme, 4 July The centenary commemoration of the battle of the Somme, 9 July By John Gibney The Battle of the Somme, in the Picardy region of northern France, was the British contribution to a wider Allied offensive against the Central Powers in 1916. It lasted … Read more
HOW DID THE IRISH IN FRANCE FARE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR, A PERIOD MARKED BY THE THREAT OF INTERNMENT AND SEVERE FINANCIAL PRESSURES? WHAT WAS THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE GERMAN OCCUPIERS? By Isadore Ryan In March 1941 the Irish legation to the État français, set up in Vichy following France’s defeat by the Germans … Read more
The Irish in occupied France were fortunate to have an unjustly forgotten individual to look after their interests. When the official Irish legation followed the French government to Vichy, Count Gerald O’Kelly de Gallagh, from County Tipperary, was posted back to Paris as ‘special plenipotentiary’. Count O’Kelly thus defied German and Vichy French instructions for … Read more
Castle Street, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford By Sarah Buckley A meeting on 4 February 1891 set in motion plans for an important public building in Enniscorthy, one intended for the cultural improvement of the town and its people but which became a centre of revolution in 1916. At the meeting, Revd William Fortune (1848–1925) expressed the … Read more