The trial of civilians by military courts—Ireland 1921

Seán Enright is a practising judge on the English legal circuit, with close family links to Ireland. He brings his legal training to bear in an examination of the court proceedings and findings of the military courts set up following the declaration of martial law in the eight southern counties covered by the 6th Military … Read more

PR & the Sligo borough election of 1919

The financial deprivations caused by the First World War accelerated the decline of the already unhealthy financial situation of Sligo Corporation. In August 1917 an inquiry blamed its poor financial situation on ‘the neglect of proper administrative procedures’. The borough’s leading ratepayers (largely Protestant) believed that they must gain political representation on the corporation in … Read more

The search for ‘statutory Ulster

It is unlikely that the Buckingham Palace conference of July 1914 would feature prominently on a list of momentous events punctuating the discourse of Ireland’s partition. Indeed, its brevity and predictable collapse were another manifestation of an ever-tightening deadlock concerning the third Irish Home Rule bill, and it elicits merely cursory references in the general … Read more

On this day

July   5 1812 Frederick Edward Maning, adventurer and naturalised Maori, born in Johnville, Co. Dublin.   6 1939 Mary Peters, Olympic gold medal-winner in the pentathlon (Munich, 1972), born in Halewood, Lancashire.   5 1922 Cathal Brugha (47) was mortally wounded fighting on the republican side against Free State forces in Dublin’s O’Connell Street … Read more