Ulster Museum 23rd March …Sponsored by Instiute of British-Irish Studies (IBIS) at UCD. Following closely on “Remembering the Future” a CRC event, IBIS held a related event at the Ulster Museum. There were about 200, mostly pre-registered, “attendees” but I noted that many of the well known names on the list did not actually show up. Against a background of upcoming centenaries what exactly can or should the Cultural Community do to foster a positive approach to it all. Chairing …
One of the unexpected treats on tonight’s tour of Parliament Buildings was the stop-off in the Assembly Library. The “tweet-up” had been arranged by the Assembly’s Engagement team to encourage photographers, facebookers, tweeters, bloggers et al to come and explore the delights of Stormont – a legislative first in the UK or Ireland. The library has an enormous set of political biographies and Irish political history section. In an annex to the main library, a small room with colourful bookshelves …
Great set of colour photographs from Ireland in the 1920s. Chris has them marked up as National Geographic items. Extraordinary to see a generation of Irish people in colour whom many of us will only have seen in black and white, Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
After almost seventy years, it looks like Belfast may erect a public memorial to the victims of WWII bombing raids on the city. Most people in present-day Belfast are probably vaguely aware that it was bombed during the war, but a memorial may help to prompt more understanding of the actual scale of the devastation wreaked by the Luftwaffe’s bombs. On the night of Easter Tuesday, 15th April 1941, two hundred Nazi bombers attacked the city. With over 900 people killed, …
The Anglo-Irish Agreement whose 25th anniversary falls today immediately exposed the limitations of a unionist veto on all political progress. But its equally significant and unintended result over time was to demonstrate the impossibility of reaching full agreement without participation by all sides, Sinn Fein as well as unionists. Understandably perhaps, retired mandarins of Iveagh House like Sean Donlon stress the check to unionism. Essentially the elements of the 1985 Agreement remain the default position should the GFA and St …
Military historian David Murphy has an interesting article in today’s Irish Times on the Irish men and women who joined the French Resistance during World War II. From the Irish Times article While the Irish contingent within the Resistance was extremely small, it can be shown that a number of them came to the attention of the authorities. It is known that 10 were arrested, tried and later sent to prison, a labour camp or a concentration camp. Four Irish …
The run up to the 11th November seems as good a time as any to produce the first in an occasional series of essays on photographers. I’m starting with Roger Fenton who produced the first ever published photographs from a war zone. It seems all the more relevant after hearing earlier last week that South African war photographer, João Silva lost portions of both his legs after stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan. The differences in the genre since Fenton embarked on his historic expedition …
It may not be as spectacular as the Iron Age gold torcs, or the Anglo-Saxon hoard, but the collection of Bronze Age axe heads, spear tips, and other 3000-year-old metal objects unearthed in an Essex field is equally impressive in its own way. And they haven’t, yet, revealed what’s in the pot[tery]. “This is a really exciting find,” said local archaeologist Laura McLean. “To find a hoard still located in its Bronze Age context, below the level of ploughed soil, is very …
The BBC notes the online publication of controversial historical accounts of the 1641 rebellion in Ireland. It’s the result of a three-year project, led by researchers at the Universities of University of Cambridge and The University of Aberdeen and Trinity College Dublin, in which 19,000 pages of the original depositions were transcribed. From the 1641 depositions website Traditionally the rebellion was thought to be sufficiently explained as an inevitable response to the plantation in Ulster. Nowadays most scholars see that as an oversimplification and …
I know it’s a stale hangover from the Troubles. But I still get a kick out of hearing the Ulster accent used to talk about something completely different and not thank God about US all the time. No, it’s not Jimmy or Fergal Sharkey on UK Music or broadcasters like Colin Murray, Peter Curran or our own Lady Gagga to Gloria’s Madonna, Christine Bleakley, but the deeply serious but very witty Keith Jeffrey letting rip on his history of MI6. …
If you have the great fortune (or life planning abilities) to live in this wonderful country then you can buy the Western Mail. Do so today because it’s the start of what looks like being a super series. If by ill-fortune, bad planning, or inconvenient romance you have ended up elsewhere don’t worry it’s on the internet!
Welsh Nationalist. Rugby Fan. Know a bit about History and Railways…
A couple of articles worth considering in relation to this time of the year. Via Newshound, Pierre Ranger in the New York Times Still, flattered as I am by this attachment to my country, I have to admit that Bastille Day in Belfast has little to do with France — just as Orange parades are remote from the Dutch dynasty of that name. Both events reveal more about Northern Ireland in the 21st century than they do about other countries …
There is a fascinating exchange (transcript below) on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme last night between the historian Anthony Beevor, and Open Democracy’s Anthony Barnett. It arose out Beevor’s rather feisty remarks at the Hay Festival in which he noted: …with journalists wanting to write history on the hoof there is a tremendous pressure on people wanting to protect themselves and their reputations for the future; and they are weeding out information before it gets to the archive, or …
A couple of years ago at an event to promote the Walled City cultural tourism attractions at Stormont, Martin McGuinness talked about ‘Derry’ and ‘Londonderry’. With those two words he gave explicit recognition to the multiple narratives that are required to tell Northern Ireland’s story. The story that Derry/Londonderry wishes to tell entwines Colmcille, Plantation, 1689, and Free Derry with a cultural story that brings us into the present day. What was impressive about that event was how this rich …
