By Lar Joye The first police forces in Ireland were created under the Peace Preservation Act of 1814 by Sir Robert Peel (who for three years was MP for Cashel, Co. Tipperary). This was to lead to the creation of county constabularies in 1822, and over the next century 85,000 policemen served. Further restructuring took … Read more
Narrow cynicism and rehashed stereotypes. By Sylvie Kleinman Encore. Another deprecating—worse, factually incorrect—spin on the French Revolution in an RTÉ TV documentary, part one of Daniel O’Connell—forgotten king of Ireland, broadcast on 22 August 2019 (reviewed in HI 27.6, Nov./Dec. 2019). The gaffes in contextualising O’Connell’s time in France, reducing everything into that unshakeable construct of the … Read more
BRENDAN SIMMS Allen Lane £30 ISBN 9781846142475 Reviewed by Geoffrey Roberts If you are going to challenge a cherished historical consensus you need cogent arguments and compelling evidence. Brendan Simms’s challenge to deeply entrenched interpretations of Hitler’s Weltanschauung is plausible and engaging but unconvincing. According to Simms, ‘Hitler’s principal preoccupation throughout his career was Anglo-America … Read more
BY TONY CANAVAN Oireachtas 1919–2019 goes on-line The Oireachtas Library and Research Service recently launched an on-line ‘Bibliography of Parliament 1919–2019’. The bibliography aims to be an authoritative but not exhaustive list of works relevant to the first 100 years of parliamentary self-government in Ireland. It was commissioned as part of the Houses of the … Read more
The animosity of both the Irish and the Turkish national movements towards their common foe found expression in their public pronouncements. By Merve Dogan Kader and Seán Patrick Smyth It is sometimes forgotten that Irish and Turkish soldiers faced each other on the battlefield during the Great War. Irish soldiers fought against the Turks not … Read more