Sir,—Re your editorial, ‘Counting down to 2016’ (HI 19.1, Jan./Feb. 2011). Forget about merely jumping the gun, you have obviously opted to leap completely over the entire arsenal in your enthusiastic haste to arrive at 2016, as your countdown gathers pace and the Dictionary of Irish Biography column heads for the hills! I do, however, … Read more
Founded by Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh, the first site of St Enda’s (Scoil Éanna) was Cullenswood House on Oakley Road, Ranelagh, Dublin. The school opened on 8 September 1908. It was originally conceived as St Lorcan’s School but took the name of St Enda of Aran, who abandoned the heroic life of a warrior … Read more
Although only in existence for seven years and never amounting to more than a few hundred members, the Democratic Left (DL) alumni of two Labour leaders as well as numerous other prominent figures in Irish progressive politics make the party an interesting subject for study. There are harshly differing views on what the DL project … Read more
Following the launch of this book in Dublin, a senior SDLP member advised the current reviewer that this would not be an easy read. What he meant was that it contained a lot of factual information that needed to be carefully deliberated on as the book was being read. The blurb on the back cover … Read more
With its seamless blend of fact and elastic pishoguery, Irish rural folklore is a slippery business, and nowhere more so than in Ulster, as exemplified by this humorous and heartfelt coffee-table picture book of Fermanagh folk memory. Long ago, McKeagney, a shopkeeper and undertaker from Tempo village near Enniskillen, had the brainwave of turning local … Read more