Over the past ten years, as a result of increased immigration from various parts of the world, Ireland has become a more visibly multicultural society. These migration patterns are not random. The establishment of the Irish Muslim community, for example, is partly rooted in Ireland’s shared colonial history with India and South Africa under the … Read more
The twelve-volume series of official British documents, The transfer of power in India 1942–7, published between 1967 and 1982 is full of references to Ireland, many of them dire warnings about the awful example that Ireland offered to the British government as Indian independence approached. The editor-in-chief, Irishman Nicholas Mansergh, Professor of Commonwealth History at … Read more
The Great Bengal Famine of 1943–4 resulted in the deaths from starvation and famine-related diseases of over two million people. In pre-partition Bengal it reawakened dim collective memories of Chhiatt?rer monn?ntór, the massive but poorly documented famine that had produced devastation in 1770. In India and Bangladesh both famines are seen as colonial famines: the … Read more
Throughout the first half of the twentieth century many household names from the Indian nationalist movement came to Ireland. Keen friendships developed between a variety of Irish and Indian agitators, embracing many of the leading political and literary figures of the day from both countries. As a result of their shared imperial histories, comparisons and … Read more
On 17 July 1924, as the mail boat docked at its usual berth in Kingstown, it brought the first head of state to the new Irish Free State. A contingent of the newly formed Irish National Guard and a number of Irish Free State ministers waited on the quayside. After a slight delay, to the … Read more