For the two centuries of its existence Maynooth has been close to the centre of Irish life and controversy. There is not a corner of the island which has not felt the effects of its alumni, or of decisions taken within its walls. Loved or viewed with suspicion, there is no seminary anywhere which has … Read more
The restless energies of Daniel Corkery (1878-1964), author of TheHidden Ireland, friend of Terence MacSwiney, scourge of Sean Ó Faoláinand Frank O’Connor, and champion of the Gael, the Church, the language,and the land, seem a little unfashionable in the Ireland of today. So,too, do the charms of the village of Inchigeelagh, County Cork. ButCorkery loved … Read more
When Peadar O’Donnell was asked on one occasion why he did not bequeath his papers to posterity for historical research, he replied, half in jest, that he had no desire to start the Civil War all over again. If the intensity of the debates provoked by Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins is anything to go … Read more
Seventy-eight years ago on a quiet Tipperary roadway the first nationalist revolt against the British Empire this century was started by a small band of armed men from townlands and villages—Donohill, Solohead and Hollyford—in the vicinity of Tipperary Town. The Soloheadbeg ambush shook British rule in Ireland and sparked a controversy which can be heard … Read more
The Easter Rising—in which a twelve-hundred strong force took over the centre of Dublin, proclaimed the right of Irish citizens to the ownership of Ireland, fought, surrendered, and were either executed or jailed—is an event which has exercised the minds and pens of Irish historians for generations. Indeed, eighty-one years on, the interpretation of that … Read more