Irishmen do not need to have indicated to them the hardship of being governed by those alien to them in temperament, ideals and traditions. An Englishmen they say can never understand the needs of a country like Ireland. How strange then that all men should be considered gifted with the wonderful power of sympathetic interest … Read more
The Irish national anthem is a source of some tension and confusion. At frequent intervals over the past seventy-five years, its text has been attacked as inappropriate. The same objections have been repeated: that its militaristic subject matter and sentiments are irrelevant for a modern, independent, neutral state, or that the text perpetuates attitudes which … Read more
The troubles of the last twenty five years have served to focus the minds of Ulster people on their history. They are more conscious than ever of their ancestors-Gaelic, Norman, English, Huguenot, Lowland Scot, Highland Scot. But that consciousness has neglected and all but forgotten one particularly influential immigrant group. Most often they are … Read more
In 1913 Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of the Daily Mail, offered a prize of £10,000 for the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic by a ‘heavier than air’ machine. A seventy-two hour time limit was set under rules drawn up and administered by the Royal Aero Club. The competition was suspended for the duration of the … Read more
As Ireland’s historians have duelled through contentious and sometimes acrimonious debate in recent years about new research and revisions concerning Irish history, historians in the United States have been engaged in a transformation of studies about the past of the Irish in America. Their differences have not been so loudly declaimed or headlined as those … Read more