Author: Bruce Gaston

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The Irish government has released some previously classified documents at the turn of the year. There are some that cast light on events in Northern Ireland and Ireland more generally.

The Guardian reports on stories aof acrimonious meetings between David Trimble, leader of the UUP, and Tony Blair, in the period after the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1997: David Trimble was ‘extraordinarily rude’ to Tony Blair at Good Friday talks
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/27/david-trimble-was-extraordinarily-rude-to-tony-blair-at-good-friday-talks

Another headline, “Diana apparently believed Northern Ireland part of the Republic, archive shows” seems to put the worst spin on what may have been a slip of the tongue or a poorly expressed pleasantry. Make up your own mind here.

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Cheering news for everyone interested in Ireland’s history: the mammoth project to recreate in virtual form the Public Records Office in Dublin’s Four Courts has been officially unveiled. (It can’t be said it’s been completed – indeed, it’s doubtful it ever can be.)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/22/irish-public-record-office-civil-war-bombardment-archives-reborn

You can read about the destruction of the original archive here.

[Note: this post should have been published in May. For some reason it landed in the “drafts” folder instead.]

On this day: The Signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty

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On this day, after over a month of arduous and sometimes ill-tempered negotiation, delegates representing Dáil Éireann, the break-away Irish parliament, signed an agreement with the British government that brought to an end the political violence that had wracked Ireland…

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Sisi, Maynooth and St. George

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This is actually from a call for papers for an academic conference on Austrian travel writing, but I found it pretty funny: On 24 February 1879, Empress Elizabeth of Austria (‘Sisi’), participating in a stag hunt out of Summerhill House,…

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