Nick Maxwell Our march was based upon the Selma–Montgomery ‘freedom march’ in Alabama in 1965, and it is instructive to examine the similarities and the contrasts. The distance between the two US cities, at 55 miles, was quite a bit shorter than ours. The march, like ours, was organised by a student group, the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating … Read more
To say that Shamrock Rovers have had a disappointing season in 2012 would be an understatement. Having made Irish football history in 2011 by becoming our first club to reach the group stages of a major European competition, 2012 saw the club fail to take any silverware and crash to humiliating 5–1 and 4–0 defeats … Read more
The January 1969 Belfast to Derry march was organised by People’s Democracy, a civil rights group that had come into existence only a few months earlier. We were dismayed at the poor turnout and were outnumbered by Loyalist counter-demonstrators. International parallels As the four-day march got under way, prisoner 46664 on Robben Island, an obscure … Read more
One of Dublin’s architectural gems is the old Department of Industry and Commerce (now Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation) building at nos 24–28 Kildare Street, formerly the site of the Maples Hotel mentioned in James Joyce’s Portrait of the artist as a young man. After independence the Department of Industry and Commerce occupied various buildings around … Read more
I saw the Protestant Reformation as centrally about civil and religious freedom—the right to read the Bible in one’s own language; to approach God directly with neither priest nor pastor; to interpret the Bible and to assess religious and other issues for oneself. The Catholic Church in contrast was a powerful, wealthy, hierarchical, worldwide institution … Read more