THIRTY YEARS AGO A RADIOACTIVE PLUME CREATED BY THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT DRIFTED OVER EUROPE. FILES HELD IN THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE OF NORTHERN IRELAND ALLOW US SOME INSIGHTS INTO THE OFFICIAL RESPONSE NORTH OF THE BORDER. By Alan W. Robertson At 1am on 26 April 1986, Reactor 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in … Read more
The Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund By Fiona Fitzsimons The WO35 records featured in the previous issue tell the story of how the Irish population, initially hostile to the rebels in 1916, were alienated by the authorities’ heavy-handed response. The records of the Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependants’ Fund (INAAVDF) complete the … Read more
A CANDID, METICULOUS AND OCCASIONALLY HUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF EASTER WEEK By Anne Carey Following the 1916 Rising, Robert Leask, older brother of Dr Harold G. Leask, author of Irish castles and castellated houses (1941) and Inspector of National Monuments from 1922 to 1949, set down on paper a candid, meticulous and occasionally humorous account of … Read more
IT IS UNFAIR TO HIS MEMORY TO MAKE HIM A SCAPEGOAT FOR IRISH ANTI-SEMITISM by Colum Kenny In December 1915, the editor of Nationality published on its front page the following rebuttal of anti-Semitism: ‘We do not know of one Nationalist Irishman … who holds the creed that an Irish Jew should be ineligible for … Read more
RECOLLECTIONS OF IRISH IMMIGRANTS IN THE ‘SLAVE NARRATIVES’ FROM THE NEW DEAL’S WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA) By Joe Regan On 2 November 1938 Mal Boyd sat on his porch in Pine Bluff, Arkansas; he recollected his father’s years as a slave in Texas: ‘Papa belonged to Bill Boyd. Papa said he was his father and … Read more