BARRY McLOUGHLIN and EMMET O’CONNOR UCD Press €30 ISBN 9781910820582 Reviewed by Maurice J. Casey On 14 April 1938, William McGregor, a young Dubliner with a background in the IRA and the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI), was killed in action while fighting in the Battle of the Ebro, a major battle in the Spanish … Read more
Joe Culley @TheRealCulls In De Valera and Roosevelt: Irish and American diplomacy in times of crisis, 1932–1939, Bernadette Whelan takes a close look at both the formal and informal efforts to build an understanding between our still-nascent state and the world power. One significant conclusion that Whelan reaches is identifying Dev’s blind spot: ‘… de … Read more
Malahide, Co. Dublin http://www.modelrailwaymuseum.ie By Tony Canavan As the COVID lockdown continues, Museum Eye again goes online to visit an exhibition. Among the more interesting offerings is the Casino Model Railway Museum. Its website is well laid out and straightforward. Although it is aimed at people who visit in person (with details of location, opening … Read more
BBC Four, February/March 2021 (six episodes) (first broadcast on BBC2 in 1971) By Hiram Morgan Glenda Jackson’s Elizabeth I is the quintessential portrayal of the sixteenth-century monarch, and what a performance! Jackson, aged 35 when the series was made in 1971, was equally convincing as the feisty red-haired teenage princess fending off the attentions of … Read more
The response to the Belfast blitzes of 1941. By Pat Poland By April 1941 the United Kingdom had been at war with Nazi Germany for over a year and a half. From the start, the authorities in Northern Ireland believed that they were geographically too far removed from the main action for it to have … Read more