DK: Tell us about your background and early interest in history. FXM: I was born in Ballylongford in north Kerry. It was the height of the Civil War and my father was acting as a doctor with IRA flying columns. Free State soldiers arrived at the house, searching for my father. My mother was eight … Read more
There was a time when Dublin United Tramways could boast of being one of the finest services in Europe and the seventh largest system, with 330 tram cars. They were regarded as efficient and clean and the courtesy of the staff was legendary. The proud men in their uniforms, motorman and conductor, were captain and … Read more
De Valera’s Ireland has been held up to criticism and even ridicule, depicted as an unrealistic over-romanticised vision of comely maidens and dancing at the cross roads. Yet de Valera was an astute politician with a specific political, cultural and national agenda. If his head appeared in the clouds, his feet were firmly on the … Read more
Many countries today face, or will soon face, one of two population problems. Some countries’ populations are growing so rapidly that sheer numbers will endanger their ability to provide schooling, employment, and basic social amenities to their people. Other countries face a situation nearly the opposite. Their population growth is very slow, or in some … Read more
C.S. Andrews said of his youth in turn-of-the-century Dublin that as far as inner-city Catholics were concerned ‘there was no such thing as a poor Protestant’. However, the scale of charitable activity both directed towards, and organised by, Protestants in the city would seem to indicate otherwise. The nineteenth century saw a great increase in … Read more