Oh what a lovely war! Dublin and the First World War

The First World War was good for Dublin. Living standards rose and mortality rates fell as money flowed into the tenements in separation payments to soldiers’ wives. The British government’s relatively generous compensation to property owners for the destruction wrought in 1916 allowed for a slight reduction in the commercial rates, and Lloyd George provided … Read more

Sarah Harrison and the allotments movement

One of the few success stories of the war was entirely pacific. The allotments movement was founded by the artist and former independent nationalist councillor Sarah Harrison in 1909 but made little progress until Dubliners began to experience chronic food shortages from 1915 onwards. It crossed political and religious divides, with Revd Dr Denham, Presbyterian … Read more

Internment, August 1971: seven days that changed the North

Had anyone been of a mind to survey the attitude of Northern Ireland’s Catholic population on the evening of Sunday 8 August 1971, they would have discovered an agitated people alienated from the ruling Stormont regime. A similar study carried out seven days later would have found a community still alienated from Stormont but now … Read more