The most illuminating evidence that we have of high-level military decision-making in relation to Bloody Sunday is contained in a series of interviews conducted in 1983 and 1984 by Desmond Hamill for a book that he was writing about the British Army in Northern Ireland. Hamill’s interviews with the key military figures involved were conducted … Read more
Sir, —The errors in Tony Canavan’s piece on the vandalised painting at Stormont (‘A papist painting for a Protestant parliament?’, HI 16.1, Jan./Feb. 2008) lead me to wonder whether he really researched the topic or rather acquired his information at second or third hand. The man who attacked the painting was Charles Forrester, not ‘Forster’. … Read more
Crimes of loyalty: a history of the UDA Ian S. Wood (Edinburgh University Press, £15.99) ISBN 9780748624270 Lord, oh lord, what a depressing book! Militant loyalism is one of the truly awful traditions that has blighted this island, and Ian Wood’s history of the Ulster Defence Association illustrates that point in almost all of its … Read more
The federal subpoena served on 5 May 2011 on the John J. Burns Library of Boston College established that events occurring as long ago as December 1972 have the capacity to destabilise variously the academic, legal and political affairs of the present. Assumptions that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would guard against this … Read more
A visit to the UK National Archives at Kew is always a special trip for researchers examining manuscripts from the vast collection of material housed at the impressive south London facility. For students of conflict in Ireland, however, a new on-line facility allows researchers to download a wealth of material relating to Ireland from the British … Read more