Despite a chequered career in the service of six European monarchs (four of them Russian) and a military reputation that merited Frederick the Great of Prussia’s glowing comparison to Prince Eugene, Lacy has not merited a biography in either Russian or English. A number of possible reasons can be proffered for this major lacuna in … Read more
With the nights getter longer, we’ve decided to do a little online round-up, as there is all kinds of material now on the internet thanks to the decade of centenaries/commemoration. Anyone who signed up to this remarkable TCD online course on the Irish revolution will be well aware that resources are being freed up to … Read more
Comment arose that no Catholic was on the Lockwood team. Early on, Stormont considered a committee of just four, all local, with one to represent ‘the Roman Catholic interest’. As a bigger inquiry led by UGC nominees emerged, G.B. Newe of the Northern Ireland Council of Social Service was invited to join but declined because … Read more
Stories about ‘nameless, faceless, men’ heightened nationalist suspicions. Unionist MP Robert Nixon claimed that seven Derry party members met O’Neill to lobby for Coleraine against their own city with its Catholic majority, later embellished as ‘anywhere but Derry’. Cabinet minutes show that the ‘nameless men’ (whom Nixon named) were actually trying to save Magee and … Read more
Magee Presbyterian College opened in Derry in 1865 for theology studies, later providing ‘literary and scientific instruction’. It could not award general degrees, though from 1909 students could transfer to Trinity College, Dublin. Renamed Magee University College, it struggled financially—‘a small college that was nearly down and out when we took it over in 1953’, … Read more