Blueshirts, Sports and Socials by Mike Cronin

The Blueshirts are best remembered as Ireland’s fascists, and as such there has been a tendency not to examine the broader activities of the movement. Between the image of a non-constitutional army, and the highly important role the Blueshirts played in the formation of the entirely constitutional Fine Gael, historians have struggled to give the … Read more

Reinventing Tradition: the boundaries of Irish dance by Helen Brennan

Popular culture has long been used in Europe in the construction of ‘national’ ideologies. With the development of the strong nation-state in Europe, elites have also tried to suppress or assimilate elements of popular culture which they regarded as threatening to order, whether civil or moral. In many countries, dance has been prominent in this … Read more