Tom Burnell, Irishmen in the Great War: reports from the front 1914 (Pen & Sword Military, £19 hb, 252pp, ISBN 9781473821200). Turtle Bunbury, The glorious madness: tales of the Irish and the Great War (Gill & Macmillan, €29.99 pb, 338pp, ISBN 9780717162345). Gerard Fitzgibbon, Kingdom overthrown: Ireland and the battle for Europe, 1688–1691 (New Island … Read more
County Museum, Jocelyn Street, Dundalk dundalkmuseum.ie By Tony Canavan Dundalk has been quick off the mark in mounting the country’s first exhibition about the 1916 Rising, which was officially opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Situated on the top floor of the museum, it is free to the public. The exhibition area is rectangular and you … Read more
W.B. Yeats: sex, death and the state of the nation By John Gibney Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of the poet and playwright William Butler Yeats. While it might not have been a centenary, the immense stature of Yeats in the Irish literary tradition ensured that the anniversary became the ‘hook’ … Read more
OSCAR TRAYNOR WAS A CONVENTIONAL MEMBER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY GENERATION, BUT WHAT MARKED HIM OUT FROM MANY OF HIS COLLEAGUES WAS HIS ALLEGIANCE TO WHAT WAS OFTEN DISMISSED AS A ‘FOREIGN’ GAME By Brian Hanley Born in Dublin in 1886, the son of a Fenian, Oscar Traynor was a skilled tradesman (a compositor) and a … Read more
By Lar Joye The Irish Republican Brotherhood, more commonly known as the Fenians, was founded simultaneously in Ireland and the United States in March 1858. By 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, it had become a formidable secret organisation in Ireland, and also among Irish emigrants in Britain and the United States. … Read more