Charles J. Haughey did not come cheap. Neither did this much-hyped three-part mini-series on the life, or excerpts thereof, of the notorious former taoiseach, which apparently cost €4 million to produce. Yet the expensive production costs of Charlie seem to have been lost as it made its way to the small screen. So too, alas, … Read more
The split centred around a bitter dispute between two men, Judge Daniel Cohalan, leader of the Irish-American nationalist organisation Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF), and Éamon de Valera, then leading Sinn Féin efforts in the United States to win diplomatic and financial support for Ireland’s independence struggle. This split mirrored the less-publicised break between the … Read more
It’s a Long Way to Tipperary—An Irish Story of the Great War follows the daily lives of a single family from July 1914 to December 1918 through weekly posts of diary extracts, letters, photographs and other wartime memorabilia. The posts are based on documents accumulated by the Armstrong family of Moyaliffe Castle, Co. Tipperary. This … Read more
The regular units of the British Army were unable to meet the demands of the war. New divisions of volunteers were raised in 1914, including three Irish divisions—the 10th (Irish), 36th (Ulster) and 16th (Irish). It was, however, two battalions of Irish regulars who were chosen to be part of the hazardous first landing at … Read more
The triumph of the Young Turk Revolution of 24 July 1908 was sudden, unexpected, always patchy, and never complete in the way revolutions are meant to be. Only after five years did the Committee of Union and Progress definitively move to fully consummate its power. The over-arching aim of the Young Turks was to find … Read more