IN 1968 FUTURE RED HAND COMMANDO FRANKIE CURRY, A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW OF IMPRISONED UVF FIGUREHEAD GUSTY SPENCE, WOULD INADVERTENTLY CAUSE THE BIRTH OF A LOYALIST YOUTH SUBCULTURE THAT WOULD GREATLY INFLUENCE EVENTS DURING THE VIOLENT EARLY 1970S IN BELFAST. By Gareth Mulvenna Frankie Curry and some of his Rangers-supporting friends were in a Shankill street … Read more
DOCUMENTS OUTLINING OFFICIAL PLANNING FOR THE STATE’S TRANSITION TO WORLD WAR III By Michael Kennedy The impact of a ten-megaton hydrogen bomb on Dublin would be cataclysmic. A 1958 Department of Defence map showed concentric circles of devastation moving out from a notional city centre ‘ground burst’. South to Dundrum, west to the Phoenix Park … Read more
By Joe Cully Michael Christopher Keane, From Laois to Kerry (M.C. Keane, €20 pb, 130pp, ISBN 9780992698867). Michael English, The Ha’penny Bridge, Dublin (Dublin City Council/Four Courts Press, €24.95 pb, 278pp, ISBN 9781907002298). Peter O’Keeffe, Tom Simington and Rob Goodbody, Irish stone bridges: history and heritage (Dublin City Council/Irish Academic Press, €35.99 hb, 370pp, ISBN … Read more
By William Derham In 1801, after the Act of Union, the bishop of Meath, Thomas Lewis O’Beirne (1749–1823), wrote to the chief secretary at Dublin Castle, Charles Abbot (1757–1829), suggesting ways in which the viceroy might consolidate the status of his office, advocating that he ‘publicly support the church and give a good example in … Read more
ADRIAN FRAZIER €20 Lilliput Press ISBN 9781843516781 Reviewed by: Anthony J. Jordan Anthony J. Jordan’s books on the Yeats/Gonne/MacBride triangle are now available on Kindle. This is a most interesting book by an author who is not in thrall to any of the main participants/protagonists, though he does jib at Maud Gonne’s use of the … Read more