Living and writing the twentieth century

BB: Tell us something about your background and about the people who influenced you most in your formative years. TPC: I grew up in impoverished middle-class surroundings in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. My father was a Sinn Féin activist with W.T. Cosgrave, Kevin O’Higgins and Michael Collins, setting up the local government and court system that … Read more

The Limerick pogrom, 1904

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

South: Shackleton film at IFI

Interest in Ernest Shackleton has been renewed recently, thanks in partto a successful exhibition held last year at the National Museum,Collins Barracks. South (80 mins) is a record of Shackleton’s attemptto cross Antarctica via the South Pole in 1914. Filmed by expeditionmember Frank Hurley, the film was originally released in 1914 andchronicles what happened to … Read more

‘Tumbling Into the Fight’ Charlotte Grace O’Brien (1845-1909); The Emigrant’s Advocate

Chandra Miller Emigration from Ireland is as ancient a fixture as the human urge to roam and explore. In post-Famine Ireland, however, the emigration of single young women became a documentable historical phenomenon.  Before the Great Famine of 1845-1849, emigration had already established itself as a feature of Irish society. In the five years preceding … Read more