One hundred years ago this week, on 22 June 1921, the official opening of a new parliament within the the United Kingdom took place. After elections on 24 May across the newly created entity of “Northern Ireland” (made up of…
Tag: Unionism
Two Northern Irish book reviews:
Paramilitary Loyalism: Identity and Change/A Difficult Birth: The Early Years of Northern Ireland, 1920–5
Richard Reed, Paramilitary Loyalism: Identity and Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) Alan F. Parkinson, A Difficult Birth: The Early Years of Northern Ireland, 1920–5 (Dublin: Eastwood, 2020) As preparation for a guest lecture I gave at the University of…
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…
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…
Book review: Acts of Union and Disunion, by Linda Colley
I bought this on a whim last week and have now almost finished reading it. It’s based on the BBC Radio 4 radio series of the same name, which dealt with the various acts and processes that have either bound…
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…
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.
The Loyal Dublin Volunteers: a forgotten organisation
History always brings up surprises. I’d never heard of this before. At its peak the LDV boasted a membership of some 2000 men. Many were of Ulster birth, some 768 men and women signed the Ulster Covenant and Declaration within…