THE FEMINIST MOVEMENTS OF THE 1960S AND 1970S ELSEWHERE WERE IN ESSENCE MODERNISATION MOVEMENTS; IRELAND’S TIME-LINE WAS DIFFERENT. The feminist organisation of which I was a founding member in 1970 was called the ‘Irish Women’s Liberation Movement’ (IWLM). It is historically inappropriate to call it ‘the women’s movement’ as there were many different ‘women’s movements’, … Read more
IN DECEMBER 1914, THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT APPOINTED THE HISTORIAN, STATESMAN AND DIPLOMAT JAMES BRYCE TO INVESTIGATE GERMAN ATROCITIES IN BELGIUM. THE RESULTING REPORT REMAINS ONE OF THE MOST DIVISIVE DOCUMENTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR. The report, or Blue Book, by the committee charged with investigating alleged German outrages is widely acknowledged as having been … Read more
Since the middle of the nineteenth century there have been two universities in Dublin—Trinity College and the Catholic (later, from 1908, National) University—and so it is not surprising that a rivalry developed between them. In Dublin on 11 November 1919 the first anniversary of the Armistice was widely commemorated. Trinity students gathered outside the gates … Read more
Writing in the 1960s, F.S.L. Lyons compared the unionist reaction to the establishment of the Irish Free State to the dog in the night in the Sherlock Holmes story, its significance being that it didn’t bark. ‘Broadly speaking,’ Lyons concludes, ‘one may say of the ex-unionist or loyalist minority that the most important thing about … Read more
The popularity and success of Fordson FC signalled a shift in the place of soccer within Irish society. When the Ford Marina plant opened in Cork in 1917, those who started work there would probably not have believed that within a few short years a soccer team from the factory would not only win the … Read more