William Richard Murphy was born in County Wexford in 1890 but was orphaned at an early age and brought up in Belfast by an elder cousin. He graduated in education in Dublin and returned to Belfast to teach on the Falls Road. When the First World War broke out he joined the British army as … Read more
The ‘other Arans’ lay off the coast of County Down, and they are no longer known as Arans because they have lost their Gaelic name. This Gaelic name, which itself supplanted an unknown number of earlier names, began to be displaced in the early medieval period when the Norse used the islands as a trading … Read more
The Humanities Building, UCD, was the venue in September 2005 for a three-day conference—‘Eamon de Valera 30 Years On’—co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute of Ireland, the Fianna Fáil party and the Mícheál O’Cléirigh Institute for the Study of Irish History and Civilisation. Apart from the many fine speakers, former taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald made many significant … Read more
Long Kesh prison camp, or HMP Maze as it was later renamed in the mid-1970s, sits on a 360-acre site just outside Lisburn, Co. Antrim. It’s the site where, over a four-year period from 1971 to 1975, the British government oversaw the internment without trial of its own citizens. It’s the place where in 1981 … Read more
MÓH: What stimulated your interest in history? PJ: One was an inspirational history teacher, Mr ‘Dan’ Dare of Dame Alice Owen’s school in Islington. The other was my family, amongst whom politics was the staple topic of conversation. My family was very divided, some on the left and some on the right. I also had … Read more