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…
Tag: Northern Ireland
State papers: Dublin’s fear of civil war and Provos bankrolled by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi:
The Flight of the Earls
This post was originally written on Quora in answer to the question: “Irish History: What was the ‘Flight of the Earls’, and why was it important?” This is my response: It probably matters most because of what it symbolised. The…
Why the most northern part of Ireland is in the south
“British Isles Euler diagram 15” by TWCarlson – Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons. Some years ago I created the following guide to the minefield of names for the constituent parts of the, err, am I allowed…
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…
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…
1984: UK Government considered repartition of Northern Ireland
Every January the British National Archives prompt a flurry of historical recollections and reflections when they release a tranche of previoulsy confidential government documents under the “thirty-year rule”. This year, 1984 comes under the spotlight, a year in which the…
My top books on Irish history
There are a lot of books on Irish history, and the current Decade of Commemoration has prompted a flood of new ones. Here’s my choice of a few of those that have been around for a while but are still…
A Beginner’s Guide to Plantations in Ireland
I’ve been mulling over a longer post on this topic, but it’s taking a while, so I decided to write something shorter, more along the lines of a “for Dummies” or The Guardian’s Pass Notes series. So here goes: Plantations…
The Sash by the Seaside: A Brief History of the Republic of Ireland’s Only Orange Parade | The Dustbin of History
Fascinating: The Sash by the Seaside: A Brief History of the Republic of Ireland’s Only Orange Parade | The Dustbin of History.