BY TONY CANAVAN A SMASHING YEAR Interest in RMS Titanic shows no sign of waning, if Titanic Belfast, the visitor centre commemorating the building of the fabled ship, is anything to go by. It celebrated its fifth birthday recently with another record-smashing year as the city’s signature tourism project. Since opening in 2012, it has … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr A member of Dublin’s middle class, Tom Kettle joined the Irish Volunteers at their inception in 1913. Previously, he had been a Home Ruler and described it thus: ‘Home Rule is the art of minding your own business well. Unionism is the art of minding someone else’s business badly.’ Later, … Read more
JULY 02 Sat 11am Chester Beatty Library atrium, Dublin Castle. Intercultural tour with community ambassador: Mandarin language tour, Vicky Wang. 03 Sun 12 noon County Kildare Archaeological Society, Celbridge. Visit to Celbridge Lodge & Kildrought House, Henry McDowell & June Stuart. €10 (entrance fee & tea). 06 Wed 1pm Ulster Museum, Botanic Gardens, Belfast. The … Read more
RICHARD BOURKE and IAN McBRIDE (eds) Princeton University Press £34.95 ISBN 9780691154060 Reviewed by: James Smyth One contributor to this volume, Matthew Kelly, identifies ‘the quasi-military character of the RIC’ as a manifestation ‘of British power in Ireland’, while another, Marc Mulholland, notes that, together with the British army garrison, that ‘semi-military and overtly political’ … Read more
MARTIN J. McCLEERY Manchester University Press £70 ISBN 9780719096303 Reviewed by: Clifford Peeples WhenGeorge Santayana made his observation that ‘history is always written wrong, and so always needs to be rewritten’, he could easily have been making it about the subject of Martin McCleery’s book. The populist thought on the introduction of internment is clear: … Read more