One of the few success stories of the war was entirely pacific. The allotments movement was founded by the artist and former independent nationalist councillor Sarah Harrison in 1909 but made little progress until Dubliners began to experience chronic food shortages from 1915 onwards. It crossed political and religious divides, with Revd Dr Denham, Presbyterian … Read more
Both O’Casey’s and the Independent’s women in distress, one fictional, the other (semi-)real, are equally outlandish and—amid the chaos of revolution—out of sync. But on a more serious level, the focus on such representations also risks ignoring how women, in the form of Cumann na mBan, were integral to the fighting—not inconsequential, bit-part-playing outsiders. The … Read more
The Orange Order Mervyn Jess (O’Brien Press, €11.95) ISBN 97808627896619 The Orange Order: a contemporary Northern Irish history Eric P. Kaufmann (Oxford University Press, £30) ISBN 9780199208487 Unionism and Orangeism in Northern Ireland since 1945: the decline of the loyal family Henry Patterson and Eric Kaufmann (Manchester University Press, £16.99) ISBN 9780719077449 Orangeism, once the … Read more
Bulmer Hobson founded an organisation that he called ‘Fianna na hÉireann’ on 26 June 1902 at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, Belfast. In Dublin the founders of the Fianna are not so clear, nor the actual date of formation. Curiously, the most precise detail and relevant evidence may come from the pages of the … Read more
The Ulster Covenant was written and presented by William Crawley and was broadcast the evening before the centenary of ‘Ulster Day’, 28 September 1912, the day on which 237,368 Protestant Ulstermen signed the titular declaration and pledged themselves to use ‘all means necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament … Read more