Nick Maxwell Sir,—Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s excellent article (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010) reminds us that while the Saville Report is clear on the detail of what happened on Bloody Sunday it does not leave us much wiser about the reasons. Ó Dochartaigh emphasises General Ford’s plan to reverse the policy of restraint, which had previously been implemented by … Read more
McGINTY, Thom (‘The Diceman’) (1952–95), street performer, was born in Strathclyde, Scotland, one of two sons and two daughters of Thomas McGinty and Mary McGinty, a native of County Dublin. After training in Glasgow in theatre and as an artist’s model, he moved to Dublin in 1976, supporting himself with modelling work in the National … Read more
Nineteen-sixteen is looked on as a pivotal year in Irish history, but 1917, with the rapid growth of political Sinn Féin, was the year when the democratic foundations of nationhood were established. Sinn Féin won by-elections with Count Plunkett in Roscommon, McGuinness in Longford and de Valera in Clare. These political victories led to the … Read more
The mid-1950s were definitely grey. A coalition government had gained power from Fianna Fáil. The unemployed workers marched in the streets but there were no jobs for them. Many workers left Ireland; the picture of them crowding onto the mail boat in Dún Laoghaire is etched deep in many people’s memories, including my own. Our … Read more
As the First World War was entering its final stages, a pandemic of unprecedented virulence, which we now know to be the H1N1 influenza virus, infected one billion people around the globe and may have killed approximately 100 million. It spread with remarkable speed, striking in three almost simultaneous waves in various parts of the … Read more