Sir,—I was interested in Tom Farrell’s account of some of the Irishmen who fought in the Korean War (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010). This was the first war in which the United Nations organised a task force, under its own command, to enforce its mandate. As well as the troops referred to by Tom Farrell, there … Read more
Sir,—I was dismayed by Seamus Deane’s intemperate review of James Donnelly’s Captain Rock (HI 18.6, Nov./Dec. 2010), having long been an admirer of Deane’s writing. He did your readers no favours, ignoring much of the content of a book that offers the most comprehensive and sophisticated analysis of the Rockite movement to date. Deane, it … Read more
The current crisis in Ireland can be compared to ‘the crisis of liberalism’ experienced in the United Kingdom before 1914. One aspect of it was the feeling that the Westminster model had ceased to provide democratic representation under industrial conditions. It was in this period that Labour first considered issues such as proportional representation, but … Read more
Over the past four decades, beginning with Tim Pat Coogan’s The IRA and J. Bowyer Bell’s The secret army, the IRA in its various mutations has been the subject of a vast range of books of varying quality. The historiography of the republican movement up to 1969 has developed over time, as more records and … Read more
During a speech last May in UCD, delivered to the Institute of British–Irish Studies (IBIS), Brian Cowen spoke with a sense of both foreboding and cautious expectation about the prospect of entering a long decade of commemoration. From 2012 to 2022 all Ireland will come face to face with a procession of potentially volatile centenaries. … Read more