February, 2016

  “It is madness, but it is glorious madness.” The famous words of Michael O’Rahilly, more commonly known as The O’Rahilly on Easter Monday 1916, as the Easter Rising commenced. Just hours previously, under the direction of Irish Volunteer Chief of Staff, Eoin MacNeill, The O’Rahilly travelled the country in a frenzy issuing instructions to […]

I don’t normally see the London Review of Books, it’s too highbrow for me and costs £3.75 a week, for which I can buy a couple of excellent books generally at my local Red Cross bookshop. But I actually bought a copy, dated, 9 April 2015. A fine publication with much of interest. An article […]

Last year I was in Castlederg for a funeral, and in the tea-and-sandwiches after, I fell into conversation with some local people. Someone mentioned the name of Arlene Arkinson, the 15-year-old Castlederg girl who vanished in 1994. She was last seen in the company of an older man, Robert Howard. This man was found not […]

The story of how two seamen, one from Sweden and the other from Finland, appeared at the GPO on Easter Monday, 24th April, 1916, and remained there though the fighting, British bombardment and subsequent surrender has fascinated me since I first learned of it in the witness statement of Liam Tannam to the Bureau of […]

the irish rebellion_Layout 1 I’ve been asked by an American friend to recommend a good book on the Easter Rising. Any/all suggestions much appreciated.

Look here now! There’s no really easy way to say this . If you are a creature associated in any way whatsoever with something called the “Caleb Foundation”, that bastion of Norneverland Creationism, you simply have to go right back and start your life all over again. Yes…I’m afraid , you’ll have to re-run everything […]

  A late Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin wrote of quarrels between those who attacked their boiled eggs on their little ends and those who attacked them on their big ends. He was prophetic. Though kicking balls, some covered by non-human skins was a very old pastime for chaps with nothing better to do, […]

 BITTER FREEDOM -Ireland in a Revolutionary World 1918-1923 by Maurice Walsh ________________________________________________________________________________________ Edward Madigan’s review (February 1916) refers to “the IRA’s guerilla campaign and the counter-insurgency policies pursued by the Crown Forces in 1920 and 1921.”  The IRA of 1920 and 1921 was not an insurgent force, and the Crown Forces were not a counter-insurgent one. […]

I note that the Irish Times in its editorial this morning is disappointed in the south’s politicians. They’ve been conducting, it seems, election campaigns that are far too narrow. Following the rhetorical question “What planet are they on?”, the IT goes on to particularise this planet: “It is some other world, where climate change does […]

A soldier from the British Army’s 36 Division at the Somme was wounded and concussed and when he came to found himself being nursed in a French hospital. As his condition improved he gradually came to the realisation that his nurses were nuns. He found their ministrations very agreeable and got to talking  with one […]