There has always been indirect evidence in Dáil Éireann and trade union archives of republican infiltration, and recently released Military Service Pension applications show that a number of IRA and IRB activists were engaged in precisely this exercise. Some members of the group submitted identical statements with their applications that: ‘I was a member of … Read more
In June 1935 a Dublin Board of Works employee was among a group assigned to remove presses from the cellar of the Post Office’s customs parcels section in 10 Parnell Square. When he removed several presses, however, some mortar appeared insecure and collapsed when disturbed. Upon further investigation, the employee realised that he had uncovered … Read more
Colonial counterinsurgency was generally practised at some distance from democratic oversight in London or Paris, usually against non-whites, and was serviced by compliant and self-censoring journalists. Yet such coercion against anti-colonialist resistance movements had proven consistently ineffective in halting British and French imperial decline. A British journalist once said that for some in the British … Read more
Laurence Kettle was born in 1878, a son of Andrew Kettle, the Parnellite politician and one of the founders of the Land League. He was a brother of Tom Kettle, the nationalist and poet who was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He was a founding member of the Irish Volunteers in … Read more
The end of year review is a staple of the newspaper industry. While History Ireland isn’t a newspaper, there seemed no reason not to attempt something similar. Given the nature of the magazine, the obvious thing to do was to glance back to the past. So we thought: why not look at what was in … Read more