Irish archaeologists are currently engaged in major new investigations into the remains of ancient Ireland and its connections with the Roman world (NUI Galway, ‘Ireland and the Roman World’; Discovery Programme, ‘Late Iron Age and Roman Ireland’; University College Dublin, ‘Iron Age Ireland: Finding an Invisible People’). These projects will provide a new framework for … Read more
The federal subpoena served on 5 May 2011 on the John J. Burns Library of Boston College established that events occurring as long ago as December 1972 have the capacity to destabilise variously the academic, legal and political affairs of the present. Assumptions that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would guard against this … Read more
In late April 1922, thirteen Protestants were murdered or disappeared over three horrific nights in West Cork. In The IRA and its enemies (1998) Peter Hart described this as a massacre motivated primarily by sectarian hatred. Others said that the killing had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with spying against the … Read more
January 5 1922Sir Ernest Shackleton, polar explorer, died suddenly in South Georgia as he prepared to lead a fourth expedition to the Antarctic. 7 1922Dáil Éireann approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57. 16 1922Michael Collins, as chairman of the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland, formally accepted the transfer of power from the … Read more
In spite of severe ongoing cutbacks, not to mention a philistine and counterproductive proposal to amalgamate it with the National Library to save money, the National Archives scored another triumph recently with the launch of its on-line Treaty exhibition (http://treaty.nationalarchives.ie/), which includes not only the signed 1921 Treaty document itself (now available to the public … Read more