Bulmer Hobson founded an organisation that he called ‘Fianna na hÉireann’ on 26 June 1902 at the Catholic Boys’ Hall, Falls Road, Belfast. In Dublin the founders of the Fianna are not so clear, nor the actual date of formation. Curiously, the most precise detail and relevant evidence may come from the pages of the … Read more
You only need to browse through the annual saleroom catalogues on the War of Independence produced by Dublin’s main auction houses to confirm that the cultural production of the Irish Revival was imaginative, diverse and vastly industrious. The ephemera are exquisite: newspapers, journals, pamphlets and theatre programmes, illustrated with delicate etchings, illuminated lettering and the … Read more
Bruce Nelson starts his book with a clear statement: ‘this book is about race’. Over 257 pages he describes how Irish nationalists developed their own conception of the Irish race in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He does this in an enjoyable, well-written and thought-provoking way. Nelson traces how in the nineteenth century … Read more
The Ulster Covenant was written and presented by William Crawley and was broadcast the evening before the centenary of ‘Ulster Day’, 28 September 1912, the day on which 237,368 Protestant Ulstermen signed the titular declaration and pledged themselves to use ‘all means necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament … Read more
Our march was based upon the Selma–Montgomery ‘freedom march’ in Alabama in 1965, and it is instructive to examine the similarities and the contrasts. The distance between the two US cities, at 55 miles, was quite a bit shorter than ours. The march, like ours, was organised by a student group, the Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating … Read more