Cyprus Avenue/Fine Points Films, directed by Brendan J. Byrne By Breandán Mac Suibhne At the time of the Hunger Strikes, one issue animating Irish critics was the relationship between fiction and history. Translations (1980)—Brian Friel’s play about language and politics, loss, learning and betrayal—had, some argued, distorted history. Set in Donegal in 1833, the play … Read more
Abbey Theatre, Dublin, 6 August–24 September 2016 By Eamon O’Flaherty The most common question posed when deciding whether a work of art can be called a classic is whether it can survive the tendency of most things to decline with age and the passage of time. Even history, which through rhetoric can claim to be … Read more
Gambit Pictures, RTÉ1, 25 August 2016 Bob Jackson, A doctor’s sword: how an Irish doctor survived war, captivity and the atomic bomb (Collins Press, €22.99 hb, 304pp, ISBN 9781848892866) By John Gibney A doctor’s sword begins, naturally enough, with the eponymous sword of the title: a Japanese katana (usually, if incorrectly, dubbed a ‘samurai’ sword) … Read more
Convert Rolls 1703–1845 and Catholic Qualification Rolls 1774–1845 By Fiona Fitzsimons The Catholic Convert and Qualification Rolls were recently released on-line. The society portrayed in these records is much more diverse than was previously supposed. It’s also more pluralist, if we compare the Convert Rolls with the surviving RC parish records on-line. The procedure for … Read more
WHAT WAS THE CONTEXT OF THE 12 JULY RIOT IN ST JOHNSTON, CO. DONEGAL, DURING WHICH 70 PEOPLE WERE INJURED AND PROTESTANT CHURCHES, BUSINESSES AND HOMES ATTACKED? By Brian Hanley July 1972 was the worst month of the bloodiest year of the Northern Ireland conflict. As violence intensified, many in the Republic feared that the … Read more