Why did Lynch go on holidays?

If the myopia of the British Labour government in early August 1969 is hard to fathom, it is equally difficult to understand why Lynch felt he could start his annual […]

Jack Lynch and the defence of democracy in Ireland, August 1969-June 1970

When Jack Lynch left Dublin on 9 August 1969 to begin his holidays in West Cork, he had cause to be both relieved and very apprehensive. Seven weeks earlier, on […]

‘I Ran Away’? The IRA and 1969

During late August 1969, shortly after the violence that had shaken Belfast and elsewhere, Irish army intelligence gave their assessment of the situation to the Dublin government: ‘. . . […]

The IRA in the South

In mid-1969 the Department of Justice presented the Irish government with its view of the threat posed by the IRA, which it suggested had perhaps 1,200 members in the Republic. […]

Gusty Spence

Augustus (Gusty) Spence, a shipyard worker and former regular soldier in the Royal Ulster Rifles as well as an active Orangeman, has recalled accepting a lift early in 1965 to […]