by Nicholas Furlong Being up for the Germans in the war had stirring consolations and triumphalisms until the debacle at Stalingrad. Being up for the British at the same time meant a steady diet of humiliation from Dunkirk to Singapore, via Tobruck. The school yards were divided. Taunts of uncovered German atrocities, experiments, concentration camps, … Read more
Dermot Keogh A terse paragraph in the Irish national dailies on 3 May 1945 started the avalanche of international protest. Under the heading ‘People and Places’, the Fianna Fáil-backed Irish Press reported laconically that the Taoiseach and Minister for External Affairs, Éamon de Valera, accompanied by the … Read more
Brian Barton On 29 October 1940, Northern Ireland Prime Minister Sir James Craig made his last major speech in parliament—a typically impassioned tub-thumping assault on a Nationalist motion supporting Irish unity. By 24 November, he had died peacefully at his home. After taking private soundings the Governor, Lord Abercorn, asked John Andrews, the Minister of … Read more
Enda Staunton The death of Frank Ryan in Loschwitz Sanatorium outside Dresden in June 1944 three months before his forty-second birthday, brought an end to a life which spanned four wars and read like a film script. Born near Knocklong, County Limerick, he joined Fianna Éireann while still a schoolboy and saw active service in … Read more
Andy Bielenberg Sean Keating was one of the more significant painters in the formative years of the Irish Free State. He was born in Limerick in 1889, where he enrolled in the Technical School to study art, moving subsequently to the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, where … Read more