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…
Tag: British government
Review of The Border by Diarmaid Ferriter
The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics Diarmaid Ferriter Profile Books London A combination of the Decade of Commemoration in Ireland and the shenanigans around a Brexit deal have led to a renewed focus on the…
Book Review: Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World 1918-1923
Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World 1918-1923 Maurice Walsh Faber & Faber So much has been published about the Irish revolutionary period (1910-1923) over the course of the last few years that one has to be selective about…
‘Kevin O’Higgins’ Comma’
One of the most popular posts on this website – for whatever reason – is Significant Commas in Irish History. While looking for something completely different, I came across an article in The Irish Jurist about the second of the…
A Beginner’s Guide to the Anglo-Irish Agreement
What? The Anglo-Irish Agreement. Not to be confused with The Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921). When? Signed on 15th November 1985. Where? Hillsborough, Northern Ireland. Why? Both the UK government and the Irish government had been alarmed by the electoral and PR…
State papers: Dublin’s fear of civil war and Provos bankrolled by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi:
from BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
There wasn’t as much coverage of the revelations contained in declassified government papers this year as there was last year – surprising as they deal with the period of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. There are a few little gems nonetheless, such…
Book Review: Fatal Path by Ronan Fanning
This book was published last year to much acclaim. There were lots of complimentary reviews, and I’m not going to dissent here from the majority view. Ronan Fanning is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at University College Dublin and this…
Evelyn Waugh’s view of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Bill
On 5 August 1920, Evelyn Waugh, then a schoolboy aged 16, went to visit the Houses of Parliament on the invitation of John Molson MP, father of one of his schoolfriends. He managed to get in to witness part of…
Book Review: Vanished Kingdoms, by Norman Davies
I bought this book on a whim, partly because I guessed (correctly) that it would have something in it about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is a casual interest of mine. Judging by what I’ve found on the internet, the book…
Significant Commas in Irish History
As well as teaching about Irish history, I teach English language and grammar, especially the written variety, which a lot of the time seems to mean teaching commas: where to put one, where not to put one, and why it…