Politics and the Irish working class, 1830–1945 Fintan Lane and Donal Ó Drisceoil (eds) (Palgrave Macmillan, £55) ISBN 1 40393179 The editors of this volume lay out their stall at the outset by attributing the failure of labour in politics to the traditional ‘three evil geniuses of socialism: the priest, peasant and patriot’. The wide-ranging … Read more
Sir,—I take exception to the gratuitously insulting cartoon by ‘doll’on page nine of the autumn 1996 issue of History Ireland. The cartoondepicts a figure pushing over a pedestal on which is inscribed ‘NaBráithre Críostaí Irish Christian Brothers, 1820-’. The figure issaying ‘Corporal punishment was bad enough, but Gaelic corporalpunishment…’ Now, as a person with a … Read more
Eire—It was a beautiful day in Dublin. Floating down the Liffey, neat little barges with red-topped funnels, loaded with brown barrels of Guinness stout, symbolised pre-war living and good appetites. Along the riverside the sunshine accentuated, rainbow-wise, the soft greens, blues, reds and yellows with which Dublin’s tall Georgian houses are painted. It was low … Read more
Kevin Haddick Flynn outlines the background to and the course of an incident that sharply divided public opinion. This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the only anti-Jewish pogrom to take place on Irish soil—that which occurred in Limerick in the early months of 1904. The outrage divided public opinion, but only two people of … Read more
Before the Great Famine of 1845-1849, emigration had already established itself as a feature of Irish society. In the five years preceding the Famine, emigration averaged 50,000 per year, but the Famine propelled a huge rise in overall emigration as starving Irish flocked to the ships that represented hope for survival. In 1846, more than … Read more