Five minutes of heaven 5 April 2009, BBC2 Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel by John Gibney On 29 October 1975 James Griffin, a twenty-year-old Catholic stonecutter from Lurgan, was shot dead by the UVF. The Griffin family home was on the edge of a loyalist area, and at approximately 7.30pm a car containing four masked men … Read more
McKEAGUE, John Dunlop (1930–82), loyalist activist, was born at Messines Cottage, Bushmills, Co. Antrim, one of six children of Thomas McKeague and his wife, Isabella. The family operated a guesthouse in Portrush before moving to Belfast, where they opened a stationer’s shop on the Albertbridge Road; it was inherited by McKeague and in the late … Read more
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (some of whose ‘buildings of the month’ have been featured in our regular ‘Gems of Architecture’ slot) was awarded a prize in the research category of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Awards. The prize was launched jointly by the European Commission and Europa Nostra in 2002 … Read more
In 2008 Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann applied for planning permission to Cashel town council to enhance their local Brú Boru heritage centre at the foot of the Rock of Cashel. The Development Applications Unit of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government wrote to Cashel town council on 24 June 2008, seeking further information … Read more
It is arguable that the eventual decision to send in the troops while leaving the Stormont regime intact was the greatest mistake of British policy during the Troubles. It is clear that this decision was not taken casually or lightly, yet the fact remains that the government’s strategy allowed it to garner the worst of … Read more