Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland Marnie Hay (Manchester University Press, £55) ISBN 9780719079870 Marnie Hay begins her study of Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969) by claiming him to be one of ‘the losers of Irish history’. Despite Hobson’s tireless work as a republican propagandist and as a grassroots organiser for the IRB … Read more
The Gaelic Athletic Association 1884–2009 Mike Cronin, Paul Rouse and William Murphy (eds) (Irish Academic Press, E29.95) ISBN 9780716530282 This collection of fourteen articles spanning the history of Gaelic games from the medieval period onwards has been issued to mark the 125th anniversary of the GAA, a pivotal force in Irish life about which … Read more
Directed by Kari Skogland by John Gibney 50 Dead Men Walking is a cinematic depiction of the career of the IRA informer Martin McGartland. The actual details of McGartland’s life and career need not detain us; suffice it to say that his former colleagues in the IRA tried to kill him, thereby vouching for … Read more
It is 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 since the publication of his profound theory of evolution. One hundred and twenty-five years ago seven men, four active members of the IRB, emerged from Hayes’s Hotel in Thurles having founded a Gaelic Athletic Association. Just 40 years ago man landed and planted … Read more
The Freeman’s Journal published some 300 Shemus cartoons between 1920 and 1924. These were remarkably hard-hitting comments on the events of this period, reflecting the paper’s editorial stance. Up to the truce of July 1921, which led on to the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December, the main thrust of the cartoons was against the increasingly brutal … Read more