In the early twentieth century Ramsay MacDonald bestrode the fledgling British Labour Party like a colossus. In 1900 he became secretary of the newly founded Labour Representation Committee; in 1906 he was first elected as a Labour MP; over the following years he served as treasurer, chairman and secretary of the new Labour Party; and he was … Read more
With some memorable exceptions—Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front and Stanley Kubrick’s searing Paths of Glory being chief among them—Hollywood has shown little interest in the First World War. This is partly because the received narrative of the conflict—military stalemate, futile slaughter and an unsatisfying Allied victory—does not lend itself particularly well to … Read more
There has been much comment in the media in recent months on the issue of Irish Army deserters who subsequently fought for the British Army in World War II. There have been calls for the state to pardon the thousands of men who deserted (even Sinn Féin supports the call for a pardon). Much of … Read more
‘Schizophrenia of aspiration’? In his thought-provoking address to the Merriman Summer School recently, speculating on the possibility of Irish unity, former Stormont civil service mandarin Sir Kenneth Bloomfield remarked on the ‘schizophrenia of aspiration’ of newly independent Ireland. While aspiring to unity, the new state asserted its independence by policies that he described as ‘non-Britishness’, … Read more
This book promises to give the inside story of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division of the RIC, based on the official records. Unfortunately, over-reliance on those records provides a stilted and incomplete portrait of ‘the most notorious police force in the history of the British Isles’, instead of a historical roller-coaster. The records … Read more