By Daragh Fitzgerald Trinity College students made history in May when their encampment achieved their demands for the university to divest from blacklisted Israeli companies, and the latest Trinity Journal of Histories shows that they are just as adept at writing history. This volume features essays on topics as diverse as the role of Japanese … Read more
EPIC: The Irish Emigration Museum, Custom House Quay (www.epicchq.com) By Donal Fallon Forty-eight hours before visiting this exhibition exploring the experience of Irish migrants in Britain, I had been sitting in a room in Hackney interviewing Spider Stacy and James Fearnley of the Pogues. Marking the 40th anniversary of the Pogues’ début album, Red Roses … Read more
Gate Theatre, 5 April–12 May 2024 Directed by Louise Lowe By Sylvie Kleinman Fictionalising the past is a creative process that can make historians uneasy, though many admit enjoying a well-researched costume drama or novel. We quickly identify what is plucked out of context to validate or mirror present-day concerns or norms, and this reviewer … Read more
BBC Northern Ireland 27 March 2024 By Brian Hanley Reviewing John Bowyer Bell’s The secret army in January 1971, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh recommended the book ‘highly’, calling it ‘required reading’ for ‘all with a deep interest in Ireland’. Ó Brádaigh was a senior figure in the newly formed Provisional IRA, whose Belfast paper, Republican News, … Read more
BBC Radio 4 16 March 2024 By Eoin Dillon When Brendan Behan is being discussed as a writer, very often it is mentioned early on that he was also a house-painter, and it is left at that as though a sense of incongruity is warranted but not to be pursued any further. Trades are an … Read more