BBC1, 9 May 2022; RTÉ1, 16 May 2022 Alleycats TV By Sylvie Kleinman What does it mean to be Irish, and what truth lies beneath our comforting origin tales? Pensive and awed, Ardal O’Hanlon opened this captivating documentary by pacing through a suitably misty Neolithic court tomb, an iconic example of ‘sacred sites’ connecting us … Read more
By Niamh Brennan Donegal County Archives hold two visitors’ books for the Gweedore Hotel, owned by Lord George Hill (1801–79), son of the Marquess of Downshire, Co. Down. In 1838 Hill purchased a large estate in Gweedore. He is best remembered in Donegal for the opposition he faced in his attempts over the years to … Read more
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 Lar Joye Seventy-seven years ago, on 6 and 9 August 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, killing over 200,000 people. An Irish doctor, Aidan MacCarthy from Castletownbere, who had been captured while serving in the British Army and was in Nagasaki in a Mitsubishi POW camp, described the … 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