By Hiram Morgan It is not surprising that East–West relations are now convulsed by the war waged against Ukraine, as that country’s name means frontier or borderland. It is a different type of natural border from what we are used to in the West, not a channel, river, mountain range, marshland or forested terrain but … Read more
How doubts about his identity led to an Irishman’s internment in France and his deportation to one of the Nazis’ most notorious concentration camps. By Isadore Ryan On 28 July 1941, the Irish legation to Vichy France received a two-page handwritten letter from an internment camp at Le Vernet, 55km south of Toulouse. The letter … Read more
By Peter Crooks, Zoë Reid and Ciarán Wallace In this, the third of three articles counting down to the centenary of the Four Courts fire in June 2022, the authors examine the aftermath of the blaze and the work of Beyond 2022 as an all-island and international partnership to reconstruct what was lost 100 years … Read more
By Seán Bernard Newman BACKGROUND Until the summer of 1920, Ulster avoided the worst of the revolutionary violence. It was quiet, although far from peaceful, and the conflict in the South seemed a safe distance away across the provincial border. By the end of the revolutionary period, however, Belfast stood out as the bloodiest district … Read more
An insignificant document from 1921 minutely pinpoints a turning-point in the revolutionary era. By Tim Bowmer The War of Independence, the Truce and the signing of the Treaty in December 1921 effectively prevented a territory called ‘Southern Ireland’ from coming into being, but its shadow can still be seen through some documents of the period. … Read more