JOHN DORNEY Merrion €19.99 ISBN 9781785370892 Reviewed by John Gibney John Gibney is Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 100 Project co-ordinator with the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project. One of the great set pieces of the Irish revolution is the outbreak of the Civil War in Dublin in June 1922—the … Read more
FRED POWELL Policy Press £64 ISBN: 9781447332916 Reviewed by Bartholomew Begley Bartholomew Begley is an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland postdoctoral fellow in Philosophy at Dublin City University. Fred Powellhas set himself the formidable,multi-facetedand laudable task of analysing the real rationale behind Ireland’s current welfare regime, describing the cultural and political path that got … Read more
By AODHÁN CREALY JANUARY 21–23/1879 The Battle of Isandlwana/Rorke’s Drift. For many, the six-month Zulu War, prompted by the invasion of King Cetshwayo’s independent kingdom by British colonial forces under Lord Chelmsford, is viewed through the prism of the 1964 movie Zulu, which portrayed, with considerable artistic licence, the epic defence of a mission station—named … Read more
JANUARY 04 Thur 8pm Mount Merrion Historical Society, Community Centre, North Avenue. Irish Victorian mountaineers, Declan O’Keeffe. Adm. €4/students €2. 09 Tues 7pm Tallaght Historical Society, County Library, The Square. Controversial Garda commissioners, Gerry Lovett. 09 Tues 8pm Genealogical Society of Ireland, Dún Laoghaire FE Institute, Cumberland St. Newspapers as a genealogical source, Georgina Scally. … Read more
By Joseph E.A. Connell Jr Fasting as a means of coercion was an ancient tradition in Ireland. Irish nationalism renewed interest in the Gaelic past, and W.B. Yeats in The King’s Threshold dramatised the tradition of fasting. The significance of this cultural inheritance is unclear. What is certain is that Irish republicans borrowed the technique … Read more