In this current ‘decade of commemorations’, one that has received very little attention, but which had a far wider impact on the general population than most, is the 50th anniverary of the introduction of free secondary education in September 1967. It had been announced a year before by Minister for Education Donagh O’Malley, much to … Read more
TREVOR WHITE Penguin Ireland €17.99 ISBN 9781844884247 Reviewed by Frank MacGabhann Frank MacGabhann is a lawyer and commentator working in Dublin and Barcelona. In 1911 Alfred Byrne (otherwise known to Dubliners as ‘Alfie’), a diminutive publican and former bicycle mechanic with little education, was elected to Dublin Corporation (not Dublin City Council, as the author … Read more
BY TONY CANAVAN WHAT LIES BENEATH? Now that, after four years, Dublin’s Luas Cross City (LCC) project is completed, we can take a step back and consider it. One aspect of the LCC works was that it gave archaeologists an amazing opportunity to explore what lies beneath the streets of Dublin. Teams of archaeologists worked … Read more
KENNETH L. DAWSON Irish Academic Press €22.99 ISBN 9781911024750 Reviewed by Sylvie Kleinman Sylvie Kleinman is Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin. Firmly admired by his fellow United Irishmen, Samuel Neilson (1762–1802) did not attain martial glory nor die a sacrificial death in 1798. With hisreputation tarnishedby accusations of reckless … Read more
A new exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland. By Donal Maguire In April 1917, Irish painter William Orpen (1878–1931) went to France as an official war artist, serving with the British Army during the First World War. Soon after his arrival Orpen visited the Somme, the site of one of the war’s most significant … Read more