By John Walsh In this centenary year of the foundation of the state, one topic that has received little attention is the Irish language. For instance, none of the 50 essays in the Royal Irish Academy’s landmark publication Ireland 1922: independence, partition, civil war deals specifically with Irish, and it has not occupied any significant … Read more
By John Gibney The ‘Republic of Biafra’ came into being in May 1967, when Nigeria’s eastern province seceded and declared itself independent. Nigeria itself had become independent in 1960; its federal structure reflected its ethnic distinctions, with the east being dominated by the Igbo (or Ibo). Following an abortive coup by Igbo officers the previous … Read more
By John Mulqueen ‘As we marched down Grafton Street calling out our message and asking for support, a few … decided to join us … The rest ignored us or patronisingly smiled at our foolishness … We were eventually met by a solid blue line of gardaí … I asked permission to protest formally at … Read more
By Brian Harvey Every year, the minister for finance steps up in the Dáil to announce the budget. Buried deep within is normally a grant to fund Irish emigrant services overseas (€12.6m in 2021). Examination of the development of these services in Britain shows some strange intrigues at their heart and challenges some of the … Read more
By Angus Mitchell On 24 November 1922, Erskine Childers—the renowned author and anti-Treaty republican—was executed by a military firing squad of the Irish Free State in Beggar’s Bush barracks. During the century since his tragic dénouement, various efforts have been made to explain Childers and ‘the metamorphosis of a stiff-upper-lip Boy’s Own novelist into a … Read more