Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) emigrated with his parents from Scotland to America in 1848. He became exceptionally successful in the steel business eventually gaining a near monopoly of steel production in the USA. In 1901 he sold the Carnegie Company and all its holdings to John Pierpont Morgan’s Federal Steel Company for $480,000,000. The new company … Read more
Religion and Rebellion contains the proceedings of the twenty-second biennial Irish Conference of Historians, held in May 1995. The title is not an exact description of the contents. Only a few of the essays deal with ‘rebellion’ in the usual sense of the word: violent resistance to established authority. ‘Religion, rebellion, dissent, and social protest’ … Read more
James Lydon has undertaken a daunting task in writing a history of Ireland from ancient times to the present. It is difficult to cover the broad sweep of history in any detail and too easy to include chronological description instead of analysis or explanation. Yet the author has risen to the challenge admirably and not … Read more
George Orwell an agent of British Intelligence? Public records released in July 1996 reveal that the British writer in 1949 had supplied a secret propaganda unit in the Foreign Office, the Information Research Department, with a list of about a hundred writers, artists and intellectuals who should not be invited to become covert cheerleaders in … Read more
Sir,—I found it curious that Patrick O’Sullivan’s article ‘Ireland and the Olympic Games’ in HI Spring 1998 should fail to mention John Mary Pius Boland (1870-1958). Boland, a Dubliner, won two Olympic gold medals for tennis in the 1896 games in Athens, becoming the first Irishman to win an Olympic honour.—Yours etc., KEVIN O’SULLIVAN Letterkenny … Read more