The federal subpoena served on 5 May 2011 on the John J. Burns Library of Boston College established that events occurring as long ago as December 1972 have the capacity to destabilise variously the academic, legal and political affairs of the present. Assumptions that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would guard against this … Read more
March 14 1991 The Birmingham Six—John Walker, Paddy Hill, Hugh Callaghan, Richard McIlkenny, Gerry Hunter and Billy Power—were released after serving sixteen years in prison on fabricated evidence for the bombing of two public houses in Birmingham by the IRA in November 1974. 19 1921 The Crossbarry ambush in south-west Cork, one of the biggest … Read more
A recent visitor exposed to the apocalyptic reporting of the Irish economic crisis in the USA told me that he was surprised not to find tumbleweed on Grafton Street. How should we respond to this schadenfreude—with agreement? Rage? Squirming? Silence? The historian’s response has to be the long-standing one—the owl of Minerva flies at dusk: … Read more
March 4 1972 Two people were killed and a further 136 were injured when the Provisional IRA bombed the Abercorn Restaurant in Belfast. 9 1932 The seventh Dáil Éireann assembled. Eamon de Valera formed the first Fianna Fáil government with the backing of the Labour Party. 11 1812 William Wallace, violinist and composer, born in … Read more
By the time you read this we will have a new government, with Enda Kenny as taoiseach (Enda is taoiseach, isn’t he?). We may even have a single-party Fine Gael government, with or without the support of independents (and there are surely plenty of those in the new Dáil to choose from). In that scenario … Read more