By Karen de Lacey The first Turnpike Act was passed in England in 1663 but it wasn’t until 1729 that the first Turnpike Act for Ireland was introduced, allowing tolls to be charged on those travelling the road from Dublin to Kilcullen. Previously, all responsibility for roads had rested with local parish vestries and the … Read more
By Peter Connolly The Learjet 45 executive jet operated by the Irish Air Corps for the transport of government ministers and officials has been in service since 2004, so a decision regarding its replacement is clearly due, even overdue. We have to go back over 50 years to the first time an Irish government considered … Read more
By Van Gosse As an American historian, I am investigating Irish understandings of the United States’ system of white supremacy and race in general. My perspective is different from that of Irish scholars. ‘Racism’ in Ireland encompasses what Americans call ‘nativism’, as in fear of immigrants. In the US it developed via a black/white binary … Read more
By Brian Harvey What became known as ‘the Troubles’ broke out in Northern Ireland in August 1969. Refugees from the violence soon arrived in Irish advice centres and hostels receiving immigrants in Britain. The first wave went to Birmingham, where 78 families arrived immediately, followed by hundreds more over 1971–2, now going to London as … Read more
By Michael Quinn In 1961 Desmond Greaves (1913–88), the London-based leading light in the Connolly Association (CA) and editor of its monthly newspaper, the Irish Democrat, published his seminal biography The life and times of James Connolly. The book was greeted in Ireland and Britain as a landmark publication in the canon of labour movement … Read more