For many years I have had an interest in my father’s large collection of papers. After his retirement from politics in 1961, Prof. Kevin B. Nowlan and I assisted him in putting his large collection of War of Independence, truce, civil war and later personal and political papers in order, and having them transferred to … Read more
Julius Pokorny was a German Celtic scholar who supported Irish nationalism and the Gaelic League. He corresponded with Douglas Hyde, met Éamon de Valera and is mentioned by name in Ulysses. And he was a German nationalist who lost his chair in Berlin because of Jewish ancestry, after which an Irish visa saved his life. … Read more
Early in the twentieth century Sir Hugh Lane indicated that Ireland needed a school of painters prepared to commit themselves to the expression of Irish art, in order to convey a growing sense of national consciousness. This search for a new identity, not solely confined to artists, occurred about the time of the 1916 Easter … Read more
At the top of Dublin’s Grafton Street, at the corner of Stephen’s Green, stands a handsome triumphal arch—still referred to by some locals as ‘traitors’ gate’—which commemorates the ‘officers, non-commissioned officers and men’ of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who fell in the second Anglo-Boer war (1899-1902). One will search Ireland in vain to find a … Read more
The appearance of two books on the relationship between the Spanish Civil War and Ireland is to be welcomed. It is often forgotten how deep an impact the conflict made on Irish political life, if only for a short period. Public opinion in the Free State was overwhelmingly pro-Franco, as was the Catholic church and … Read more