On Saturday 11 February 1922 a gun battle at a County Monaghan railway station resulted in the deaths of four Ulster Special Constables, the local IRA commandant and the wounding of numerous other combatants and civilians. What really happened? Robert Lynch investigates. The events at Clones were inevitably interpreted in radically different ways by both … Read more
One May afternoon in 1868, a lanky adolescent in thick spectacles was hunched over some showy Chopin at a piano in Bray. As his fingers scattered notes profusely towards the Dargle, a three-year-old boy called Harry took advantage by secretly and expertly picking his pockets. Aside from the teenage pianist’s unusual virtuosity there was nothing … Read more
BB: Tell us something about your background and about the people who influenced you most in your formative years. TPC: I grew up in impoverished middle-class surroundings in Monkstown, Co. Dublin. My father was a Sinn Féin activist with W.T. Cosgrave, Kevin O’Higgins and Michael Collins, setting up the local government and court system that … Read more