Nick Maxwell A history of the Northern Ireland Labour Party: democratic socialism and sectarianism Aaron Edwards (Manchester University Press, £60) ISBN 9780719078743This book is one of a series of Critical Labour Movement Studies, of which ten have already been published. Although there is a nod in the direction of mainland Europe with a book on Swedish social … Read more
The Northern Ireland Question. The peace process and the Belfast Agreement Brian Barton and Patrick J. Roche (eds) (Palgrave MacMillan, £55) ISBN 9780230203808 On 23 May 1998 at the King’s Hall, Belfast, as the counting of votes in the referendum on the Belfast Agreement was coming to a conclusion, a small group of campaign workers … Read more
The conflict in Northern Ireland continues to provide a steady supply of new titles, academic and popular, to our bookshelves. The grim, but essential, starting-point for those who want an overview of the human cost of the conflict should be Lost lives: the stories of the men, women and children who died through the Northern … Read more
Watch the beetles scuttle Brathadóirí Thursdays, 10pm, 21 May–25 June 2009, TG4 by Anthony McIntyre Irish revolutionary history has been replete with the informer type. The degree to which they shaped it may have been exaggerated by their handlers, victims and journalists alike, but it is indisputable that their role has earned them no small … Read more
For Éamon de Valera the death of King George V in January 1936 was another opportunity to enlarge Ireland’s independence and to affirm her sovereignty. Soon into the reign of King Edward VIII—on 29 May 1936—de Valera cleared the final hurdles to abolish the oath of allegiance, ‘his favourite piece of legislation’, according to Tim … Read more