Witnesses inside the Easter Rising Annie Ryan (Liberties Press, ?12.95) 0954533550In 1947, as the generation that had lived through the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence entered their fifties and sixties, the Fianna Fáil government set up the Bureau of Military History to record the memories of those who were involved in these events. … Read more
Nationalism and the Irish Party: provincial Ireland 1910–1916 Michael Wheatley (Oxford University Press, £50) ISBN 019927357 One of the difficulties in explaining the collapse of the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1918, after three decades in which it remained virtually unchallenged at the head of Irish nationalism, is that there are so many potential explanations. Was … Read more
Seán MacDiarmada: the mind of the revolution Gerard MacAtasney (Drumlin Publications, €20) ISBN 1873437315 Seán McDermott—or MacDiarmada, as he styled himself—stands out as one of the key architects of the 1916 Rising, which was to lead to an independent Irish state in 1922. Yet, as Gerard MacAtasney claims in this excellent biography, his contribution to … Read more
James Connolly: ‘a full life’ Donal Nevin (Gill and Macmillan, ?29.99) ISBN 0717139115 Posterity has been oddly kind, even condescending, to James Connolly. While the motives and performance of many of his rebel contemporaries and successors have been subjected to ever more pitiless scrutiny, Connolly has never lost the aura of a romantic revolutionary. He … Read more
The manner in which Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced the reinstatement of a state-sponsored military parade to commemorate the 1916 Rising (at the Fianna Fáil árd fheis) has led to predictable criticisms that the Soldiers of Destiny are out to hog the 1916 commemorations in a partisan fashion, particularly in the run-up to the centenary in … Read more