The issue of integrated education in Northern Ireland has been given new impetus by recent political developments; the appointment of Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as education minister and the devolution of powers to the local Assembly. He has yet to make any firm pronouncements but it is clear that increasing demand for integrated schools will … Read more
Sean Lester, Protestant nationalist, Irish diplomat, League of Nations High Commissioner in Danzig (Gdansk) and the last Secretary General of the League of Nations, is a fascinating subject for a biography. Douglas Gageby’s account of Lester’s life and times presents a vivid picture of Lester’s metamorphosis from nationalist to internationalist and from Irish diplomat to … Read more
On 20 August 1936, Éamon de Valera received ‘A Plan for a basic constitutional law and an Initial Version of a Draft’ from a legal adviser in the Department of External Affairs, John Hearne. That document marked the genesis of Bunreacht na hÉireann. By October 1936 the ‘plan’ had grown to seventy-eight articles and other … Read more
There could be no more suitable venue for a seminar on the Act of Union than the Irish House of Lords chamber rendered redundant by the votes of its members in 1800. Preserved intact when the Bank of Ireland bought the parliament building in 1802 (and proceeded to gut the Commons), the Lords chamber is … Read more
The Thompson submachine gun or ‘Tommy gun’ as it became known, started life on the drawing board of retired US Army Lt. Col. Marcellus Thompson sometime during 1916. He was an enthusiastic gun designer with a lot of ideas of his own. He wanted to develop an automatic rifle from his personal specifications. His designs … Read more