Hidden History RTÉ1 Family Fortune: de Valera’s Irish Press, 2 Nov 2004 Directed by Gerry Nelson for Mint Productions Joe Cahill, IRA man, 7 Dec 2004 Directed by Jonathon Golden for DoubleBand Films by Eamon O’Flaherty RTÉ’s Hidden History series offered an impressive collection of documentaries before Christmas. The focus was heavily biographical—Women of the … Read more
Our neglect and ignorance of some important figures in early twentieth-century Ireland were highlighted recently during the transcription and publication of the Heads of Household Index to the 1851 census of Ireland for Dublin City compiled by D.A. Chart. In the light of the destruction of nineteenth-century Irish census returns housed in the Public Records … Read more
Ukraine is derived from a word meaning ‘frontier’ or ‘borderland’. Its natives dislike the definite article that is usually placed in front of it—‘the Ukraine’—as this seems to suggest that it is not an entity of itself but merely the edge of other peoples’ territories. States, and much less nations, rarely possess natural frontiers or … Read more
On 19 January 2005 John O’Donoghue TD, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, launched Enneclan’s CD-Rom publication of Ireland’s Memorial Records 1914–1918 at the National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge, Dublin. The CD-Rom records the names of more than 49,000 Irishmen who died in the Great War. The rich tapestry of historical and genealogical detail … Read more
Different spanks for different ranks Lions led by donkeys The last words of James Templeton, a 20-year-old mill apprentice from Belfast, are written neatly in his own hand. Before he was executed by his own battalion in the trenches of northern France in 1916, Templeton wrote: ‘I’m sorry for what I have done’. This was … Read more