Returning home explores, without being sentimental or shrill, the post-war experiences in Ireland of the 130,000 Irish men and women from widely different backgrounds who joined the British military during World War II. Ireland was the only European neutral whose nationals voluntarily joined a belligerent power on a large scale. Other 1939 neutrals were either … Read more
The provocative title of this book immediately challenges readers to think about what they consider terror to be, and what defines a terrorist. This volume, the fifth to be produced by the Trinity History Workshop, sets out to examine the role of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary terror in Ireland between the 1916 Rising and the Civil … Read more
Over the course of the eighteenth century there was an increasing focus on spectacular forms of entertainment, ranging from peep-shows and waxworks to magic lantern shows and theatrical effects, which prefigure the idea of ‘going to the pictures’. While many of these entertainment techniques remained experimental or confined to the élite, once the Irish-born Robert … Read more
On 15 June 1843, huge crowds congregated on a racecourse outside Ennis at a ‘monster meeting’ in support of the repeal of the Act of Union. Adhering to a template, the mass rally of rousing speeches was followed by a magnificent evening banquet in the town’s old chapel, where Daniel O’Connell compared the momentum of … Read more
The roads of early twentieth-century rural Ireland may have been safer for the fact that Parnell did not live to see the advent of the motorcar. According to a society hostess acquaintance, he was ‘always in a hurry; he could never wait for anything; to wait for a train was anguish to him, he would … Read more