The Easter Rising—in which a twelve-hundred strong force took over the centre of Dublin, proclaimed the right of Irish citizens to the ownership of Ireland, fought, surrendered, and were either executed or jailed—is an event which has exercised the minds and pens of Irish historians for generations. Indeed, eighty-one years on, the interpretation of that … Read more
Sir,—I am one of many who don’t know much about Michael Collins, but Ihave done an oral history of someone who served under him from 1919until the split. This man clearly read Tim Pat Coogan’s biographyas stating that Collins was a ‘womaniser’ (contrary to Ian McKeane,HI Autumn 1995), but asserted that he had not been … Read more
Sir,—I was one of the Irish soldiers who took part in the ceremonial transfer of Cork Harbour defences from British to Irish armed forces on 11 July1938. When Chamberlain asked Eamonn de Valera when he would like that transfer to take place, Dev replied, ‘11 July, the seventeenth anniversary of the Truce, 1921’. I was … Read more
The contemporary Irish interest in the reprinting of Michael Collins’ notes of August 1922 was not lost on Mercier Press. On the back of their book are Collins’ remarks about the vain efforts to bring about a truce with the British in December 1920: The actions taken indicated an over-keen desire for peace, and although … Read more
No Taoiseach. No British prime minister. No armed security. No jostlinghordes of press. Not even one international jurist was presentyesterday to witness the decommissioning ceremony in a south Dublinhouse. There was just one weapon, bearing little resemblance to a late20th-century Armalite. ‘Destroyer’ read the inscription on the barrel.Wrapped in tissue and blue cardboard, the .32 … Read more