History Ireland

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‘It was all a great adventure’…Alfred Chester Beatty & the formation of his library

The history of private libraries in Ireland in the twentieth century tends to be a sad chronicle of loss and destruction; either by fires in turbulent times or, the auctioneer’s […]

Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite, 1879-1922, Senia Paseta. (Cork University Press, hb £35, pb £15.95) ISBN 1859182267, 1859182275

For a long time Irish nationalism was seen primarily in terms of political movements, and there has been a tendency to identify with mass movements rather than elites. Recent theories […]

Defending Ireland: the Irish Free State and its Enemies since 1922, Eunan O’Halpin. (Oxford University Press, £25) ISBN 0198204264

That Ireland escaped the familiar pattern of post-colonial military despotism is remarkable given that our political forebears emerged from a militant milieu. The transition from militancy to constitutional democracy is […]

Orangeism: the Making of a Tradition, Kevin Haddick-Flynn. (Wolfhound Press, £30) ISBN 0863276598. The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions, Ruth Dudley Edwards. (Harper Collins, £17.99) ISBN 0002558637

Up until this year there had been a dearth of work on the Orange Order. This was bound to change as once again issues over the right to parade have […]

A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle (Jonathan Cape, £16.99) ISBN 0224060198

Academic historians tend to be sceptical and at times begrudging about historical novels, suspiciously dissecting the text for sloppy research methods and pouncing on convenient writer’s licence, but also secretly […]

April 27

1822 Ulysses Simpson Grant, general in the Union army and 18th president of the United States (1869–77), born in Ohio.
1521 Ferdinand Magellan (c. 40), Portuguese navigator, was killed by natives on the island of Mactan in the Philippines during the first circumnavigation of the Earth.
1920 The IRA attacked the RIC station at Ballylanders, Co. Limerick. The Black and Tans terrorised Limerick city the following day.
1967 The Abortion Act, making abortion legal up to 28 weeks’ gestation, came into effect in the UK, with the exception of Northern Ireland.
1953 Maud Gonne MacBride, revolutionary and iconic figure in nationalist mythology, died.
1916 Outside Hulluch, north of Loos in northern France, the 16th (Irish) Division suffered one of the heaviest gas attacks of the First World War; 538 men died and a further 1,590 were injured.
1923 Eamon de Valera offered terms for negotiation to end the Civil War, which were rejected by the Free State government.
1953 Maud Gonne (86), iconic figure in Irish nationalism, died.

‘It was all a great adventure’…Alfred Chester Beatty & the formation of his library

Before the Revolution: Nationalism, Social Change and Ireland’s Catholic Elite, 1879-1922, Senia Paseta. (Cork University Press, hb £35, pb £15.95) ISBN 1859182267, 1859182275

Defending Ireland: the Irish Free State and its Enemies since 1922, Eunan O’Halpin. (Oxford University Press, £25) ISBN 0198204264

Orangeism: the Making of a Tradition, Kevin Haddick-Flynn. (Wolfhound Press, £30) ISBN 0863276598. The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions, Ruth Dudley Edwards. (Harper Collins, £17.99) ISBN 0002558637

A Star Called Henry, Roddy Doyle (Jonathan Cape, £16.99) ISBN 0224060198

Personal Histories

On this Day

April 27