Nick Maxwell It should be remembered that some of the information contained in the files held in the PRONI was compiled by the government of Northern Ireland before any official announcement was made by the USSR government. It wasn’t until 14 May 1986 that Mikhail Gorbachev, as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, … Read more
THIRTY YEARS AGO A RADIOACTIVE PLUME CREATED BY THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT DRIFTED OVER EUROPE. FILES HELD IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND ALLOW US SOME INSIGHTS INTO THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE NORTH OF THE BORDER. By Alan W. Robertson At 1am on 26 April 1986, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in … Read more
The Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund By Fiona Fitzsimons The WO35 records featured in the previous issue tell the story of how the Irish population, initially hostile to the rebels in 1916, were alienated by the authorities’ heavy-handed response. The records of the Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund (INAAVDF) complete the … Read more
A CANDID, METICULOUS AND OCCASIONALLY HUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF EASTER WEEK By Anne Carey Following the 1916 Rising, Robert Leask, older brother of Dr Harold G. Leask, author of Irish castles and castellated houses (1941) and Inspector of National Monuments from 1922 to 1949, set down on paper a candid, meticulous and occasionally humorous account of … Read more
IT IS UNFAIR TO HIS MEMORY TO MAKE HIM A SCAPEGOAT FOR IRISH ANTI-SEMITISM by Colum Kenny In December 1915, the editor of Nationality published on its front page the following rebuttal of anti-Semitism: ‘We do not know of one Nationalist Irishman … who holds the creed that an Irish Jew should be ineligible for … Read more