history – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame gives us a poignant message for Easter, that our heritage is as much about renewal and rebirth as death and destruction

Brian Walker on April 16, 2019, 1:50 pm | Readers 1009

Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times brings an American perspective to the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame. Like him I immediately thought of the place accorded to the great cathedral by Kenneth Clark in his monumental BBC series Civilisation I saw when broadcast in the 1970s, and then kept in an old fashioned box set of VHSs for viewing by children as an essential part of their education. Like Kimmelman, I think of other fires and destruction of the …

“Long and short terms causes of the civil rights movement 1921 North and South to August 1969”. Four evenings of public lectures and discussions, in Belfast, Derry/Londonderry, Dungannon and Larne.

Brian O'Neill on February 4, 2019, 11:02 am | Readers 669

It can take a lot to get you to leave the house on a cold winters night but a series of talks with Eamon Phoenix and guests should be very enticing to your average Slugger reader. All events are free and you even get a wee cup of tea or coffee, so book your tickets now. They are part of a four-part series with inputs from historians and discussion with members of the audience. 1921-1968 North and South the two Irelands Speakers: Dr …

An original commemoration of the Fallen of World War One

Brian Walker on November 12, 2018, 7:24 am | Readers 777

You might have missed the centenary of the Day the Guns Fell Silent on 11th November, as commemorated with terrific originality in the Pages of the Sea project devised by the film director Danny Boyle. Ireland was well represented by three very different people in three spectacular beach locations. Boyle’s brilliant Olympic 2012 opening ceremony in London displayed the British gift for creating new traditions without irritating venerable traditionalists with dogmatic lessons about the iniquities of war and the British …

The Downside of Success – Coping with our increasing tourist numbers…

Finn Purdy on August 1, 2018, 7:21 pm | Readers 2337

Over the past number of years, Northern Ireland’s tourism industry has maintained a steady growth and our visitor attractions have continued to become more popular than ever. These high levels of tourism are a relatively new phenomenon for the region and perhaps not one we have yet learnt how to deal with properly. In 2017 there were an estimated 4.9 million overnight trips in Northern Ireland, the highest estimates on record. Many of our most popular visitor attractions are purpose-built …

New course at Stranmillis University College. Key players from October 1968 discuss the events of half a century ago…

Soapbox on August 1, 2018, 7:17 pm | Readers 1624

Stranmillis University College’s Lifelong Learning team are launching a major Living History project next month to mark the half century of the civil rights march in Londonderry on 5 October 1968 which will include live interviews with key people who were involved at the time. Among those who have agreed to take part are Bernadette McAliskey, Brid Rodgers, May Blood, Eileen Paisley, Austin Currie, John Kilclooney, Stratton Mills, Kenneth Bloomfield, Danny Morrison and Billy Hutchinson. Shirley Williams, appointed by Harold Wilson to be the first …

Ireland and slavery, then and now, free event…

Soapbox on April 11, 2018, 8:13 am | Readers 1626

We know that Ireland like most countries in Western Europe got caught up in the 18th-century slave trade and Irish merchants could benefit from the produce of the West Indies. Belfast was not exempt. The wealthy businessman Waddell Cunningham had a plantation in the Caribbean (called Belfast !) to take just one example. However there was a formidable opposition to slavery among the citizens of the growing late-18th century town, often involving radically-minded women – and a welcome was given …

The Troubles and Beyond – Ulster Museum revamps gallery

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 29, 2018, 12:14 pm | Readers 2497

On Good Friday the Ulster Museum will open their new The Troubles And Beyond collection-based gallery which National Museum NI’s chief executive Kathryn Thomson says represents multiple perspectives and allows multiple voices to be heard in order to start conversations.

The need for an agreed history…

Elaine Crory on February 16, 2018, 7:06 am | Readers 1707

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake”. Oh Mr. Daedalus, if only you had been in Northern Ireland in 2018. History is everywhere in our political reality, and also somehow nowhere. It is slippery and vague, not unlike the content of a nightmare the moment the dreamer jolts awake. I turned 18 a few weeks before I voted for the first time, and that vote was on the Belfast Agreement. It was, to me, …

Exhibition launch: “We Lived It: The Social Impact of the Troubles” @TheLinenHall

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 7, 2017, 10:51 am | Readers 547

Exhibition launch: “We Lived It: The Social Impact of the Troubles” @TheLinenHall
by Allan LEONARD @SharedFuture
2 August 2017

The Linen Hall Library has presented the first of two exhibitions of its Divided Society digitisation and outreach project. “We Lived It: The Social Impact of the Troubles” contains artwork, imagery, ephemera, and oral history extracts from firsthand accounts of individual experiences.

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster)

Peacebuilding a shared Northern Irish society ✌️ Editor 🔍 Writer ✏️ Photographer 📸 https://mrulster.com

Fresh evidence from the archives: When did Martin McGuinness actually leave the PIRA?

Soapbox on March 13, 2017, 12:23 pm | Readers 8997

A previously unseen archival document compiled on behalf of the Conservative Party Northern Ireland Committee, dated 3 July 1975, and located in the Julian Amery Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, University of Cambridge, reveals that despite Martin McGuinness’s repeated assurances that he left the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in 1974, senior members of the British Conservative Party and British Army believed that McGuinness was still a prominent ‘I. R. A. leader’ in Derry by the summer of 1975, to quote …

Now the turn of Seamus Mallon at 80. Why he and Trimble were unable to unite over arms decommissioning remains unexplained

Brian Walker on January 21, 2017, 9:04 pm | Readers 2478

Following the tributes to John Hume on his 80th birthday, the venerable SDLP deputy leader and the initial deputy first minster Seamus Mallon has given a fascinating interview to the Irish News for his own 80th. In passing I can’t help noticing the comparisons and contrasts with Sinn Fein. What are yours? On working with David Trimble, Ulster unionist leader and the first FM Mallon says his permanent secretary, civil servant Billy Gamble – “an absolute gem” – regularly had …

John Hume, a thumbnail sketch of achievement and failure

Brian Walker on January 18, 2017, 4:17 pm | Readers 1275

I’ve never been quite sure if we can call John Hume an unvarnished nationalist, but if we do, he was a great example of a leading nationalist who wanted to reach agreement more than attain the goal of Irish unity, as expressed in his wonderful oxymoron, “ an agreed Ireland.” While he enjoyed his hard- won international contacts, he remained unassuming, friendly and well grounded. Like many accomplished politicians he was less well regarded in some places where it mattered. …

Without fear or favour: 30 years of Troubled Images

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on December 8, 2016, 9:26 pm | Readers 780

Without fear or favour: 30 years of Troubled Images
by Allan LEONARD for Northern Ireland Foundation
28 November 2016

The latest incarnation of the Troubled Images project — the launch of a free downloadable iBook — was cause for a reunion of sorts at the Linen Hall Library for the original team that compiled and published its original CD-ROM 15 years ago.

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster)

Peacebuilding a shared Northern Irish society ✌️ Editor 🔍 Writer ✏️ Photographer 📸 https://mrulster.com

Digitising the peace process

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on November 12, 2016, 3:13 pm | Readers 334

Digitising the peace process by Allan LEONARD for Northern Ireland Foundation 1 September 2016 “You have to go to the archives!” an academic supervisor once advised me. At the time, this meant physically traveling to where the precious documents were stored, with your official letter requesting access permission, and spending hours transcribing (sometimes with only a pencil allowed). You were thankful if the items were available on microfilm or microfiche, because it took less time to review more material. And …

SAS commander Blair Mayne’s reputation reviewed in an authorised history

Brian Walker on September 22, 2016, 12:13 pm | Readers 4306

Well whaddya know! The last shreds of mystery have been torn away, as the UK government has authorised “Rogue Heroes, an authorised History of the SAS” by Ben McIntyre. The Times (£) has been extracting from it as he is an assistant editor. The history is limited to the WW2 and the immediate post war period. It doesn’t take in more recent SAS activity like the “war on terror” in Iraq and even Syria and long days spent on surveillance …

Robin Chichester Clarke was the last of the gentry that treated government as part of the family business.

Brian Walker on August 22, 2016, 1:49 pm | Readers 1726

Robin Chichester -Clarke, the last of the old unionist gentry to hold office in either Stormont or Westminster, died a fortnight ago at home in Norfolk at the age of 88. His elder brother Jimmy, later Lord Moyola, (familiarly known as “Chi-Chi,” after a notably infertile panda) was Northern Ireland’s penultimate prime minister in the darkening years of 1969 to 1971. Their family home was the handsome Moyola Park outside Castledawson, now a golf club. They belonged to a small elite …

British Irishman, not a Black and Tan

Brian Spencer on August 22, 2016, 11:28 am | Readers 3508

In the Ireland of 2016 the British community (Protestant and unionists) still carry the curse of plantation, Cromwell, the famine, the Black and Tans and one-party rule Stormont. (Read ‘Being a planter‘ here.) The Protestant and unionists are the villains, by birth levied and vilified with historical wrong. Catholic is Erin and virtue, Protestant is Saxon and guilt. When Americans think of Britain they think of Monty Python or Downton Abbey. When the French think of Britain they think of …

Time cannot silence the Voices of the Somme

Ian Malcolm on July 31, 2016, 10:36 pm | Readers 976

At the start of July I posted on Slugger O’Toole to introduce Somme Voices, a month-long series of daily tweets in remembrance of that dreadful World War One battle. I’m returning to Slugger to bring the Somme Voices project to a close with a final poem. The reason is that I’d like to quote this one in its entirety and Twitter is a less-than-perfect medium for something of considerable length. It does, however, give me the chance to make a …

Why we need more sixth century historians

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on June 5, 2016, 11:36 am | Readers 1530

“All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.” – Battlestar Galactica Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, Patrick Johnston, caused a furore this week with his comments claiming that “society does not need a 21-year-old that’s a sixth century historian”. Instead, he opined that “It needs a 21-year-old who really understands how to analyse things, understands the tenets of leadership and contributing to society, who is a thinker and someone who has the potential to help society drive …

David Beresford hunger strike journalist and historian, RIP

Brian Walker on April 23, 2016, 10:31 am | Readers 887

The best journalists are often oddballs. They can win close access to power, regardless of whether power is of the state or anti -state variety. They lack – and often spurn – status. They tend to walk alone and barely recognise dress codes. Perhaps their greatest quality is persistence against the odds, in which courage and ego play equal parts. If they have to, they skirt round or quietly ignore the rules of the institutions they work for and …