Nick Maxwell The Galway Hooker in the picture on the right—Bláth na hÓige—was built on Leitir Mealláin (Lettermullan island) off the Connemara coast in the nineteenth-century, and as of 2014 is operating out of Roundstone in Connemara, bringing people on 2-3 hour sailing trips around Roundstone Bay and its islands. The distinctive shape of the hooker is … Read more
September 1 Mon 8pm Celbridge Historical Society, Celbridge Library. The quiet quarterback—Protestants and the GAA, Ida Milne. 6 Sat 11.30pm Bray Cualann Historical Society, Ballywaltrim Library, Boghall Road. County Wicklow’s reaction to the outbreak of World War I, James Scannell. 8 Mon 7.30pm Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 63 Merrion Square S. Helen Roe … Read more
‘The only consideration which activated the minds of the Unionist powers . . . was that two-thirds of the population of Londonderry were Catholics. They sited the university in the heart of Coleraine . . . [a] unionist-dominated area.’ This assertion in Gerry Fitt’s maiden speech at Westminster in 1966 is still widely believed, but … Read more
Comment arose that no Catholic was on the Lockwood team. Early on, Stormont considered a committee of just four, all local, with one to represent ‘the Roman Catholic interest’. As a bigger inquiry led by UGC nominees emerged, G.B. Newe of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service was invited to join but declined because … Read more
Stories about ‘nameless, faceless, men’ heightened nationalist suspicions. Unionist MP Robert Nixon claimed that seven Derry party members met O’Neill to lobby for Coleraine against their own city with its Catholic majority, later embellished as ‘anywhere but Derry’. Cabinet minutes show that the ‘nameless men’ (whom Nixon named) were actually trying to save Magee and … Read more