Nick Maxwell The annual release of government files under the so-called ’30 year rule’ means that as of today, 27 December, one can now peek behind the scenes at some of the events of 1983. But having looked through some of the files during the National Archives’ media preview in early December, one from ‘The Emergency’ caught … Read more
by Joseph E.A. Connell Jr By the early twentieth century the Curragh army camp in County Kildare was Britain’s premier military base in Ireland. Ulster unionist opposition to the passage of Home Rule in 1912 was heightened by the support it received from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Not surprisingly, given its predominantly privileged background, … Read more
Dessie Doyle and Brian Drummond (Lilliput Press, €20) ISBN 9781843512738 The Erne catchment is the second largest on the island and as early as 1915 proposals had been aired to harness its waters cascading down more than 40 metres between Belleek and Ballyshannon. These waters were, of course, severely muddied by partition—by 1922, 730 of … Read more
Richard McElligott (Collins Press, €17.99) ISBN 9781848891777 By the time the GAA was two decades old, Kerry had won just a solitary All-Ireland title—and that was in hurling. It was later—owing in large part to the innovations of O’Sullivan, who would write The story of the GAA (1916), the first published history of the association—that … Read more
Renegades: Irish republican women 1900–1922 Ann Matthews (Mercier Press, €19.99) ISBN 9781856356848 Dissidents: Irish republican women 1923–1941 Ann Matthews (Mercier Press, €18.99) ISBN 9781856359955 These two volumes, based on research undertaken by Ann Mathews for her Ph.D, look at the trajectory of Irish women’s involvement in republicanism, both militarily and politically, from the early 1900s, … Read more