Féile an Earraigh Perspectives on 1916 – The Easter Rising Talks Programme – 21 -25 March 2016 Ireland, India and Easter 1916 Falls Library, Mon 21st March, 1pm Monday 21 March Dr Kate O’Malley isa Research Associate of the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College, Dublin, an Assistant Editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s Documentson Irish Foreign Policy, and the author of Ireland, […]
March, 2016
SPACE, TIME AND HISTORY by Donal Kennedy
I believe space and time are underestimated by professed experts on Ireland’s history. Between 1948 and 1959 I was 9 years at a Christian Brothers School in Sutton, a suburb of Dublin, and 2 years at Rockwell College, Co Tipperary, run by the Holy Ghost Fathers. Rockwell, founded in 1864, produced many republicans involved in […]
The Rumour Mill: could Simon Heffer be going to the Sindo?
I wonder if the Indo has thought of recruiting Simon Heffer. If they do, he’ll surely slip smoothly into place alongside its present coven of columnists. Here’s Simon in the Daily Telegraph yesterday: “One would have needed the proverbial heart of stone not to have laughedwhen Gerry Adams was denied entry to Barack Obama’s St Patrick’s […]
Six thoughts (occasionally contradictory) on the Holylands hoo-ha
1. If I lived in the Holylands area and was subject to that level of noise and disturbance, it would drive me to some desperate act. Noise pollution is not a good thing and shouldn’t be allowed. 2. There are some people who forget what it was like to be twenty. That’s when you drink […]
RUMOURS OF WARS by Donal Kennedy
In the late 1940s and early 1950s my father, an engineer, worked as Inspector with the Irish Land Commission, and his territory covered Wicklow and Wexford. He had a second-hand 8 horsepower 1934 Model Y “Baby” Ford and on school holidays he would take some of us along with him. Holy Catholic Ireland was, even […]
SOS – only one week left!
OK, first things first on this greyish March morning. If you’re reading this and haven’t yet got round to putting a quid or two behind my Omagh Half-Marathon for Trócaire exactly one week from today, WHY NOT? You know you’ll not miss it, just as you know the money will have real consequences for people […]
What Lesley did next
An interesting piece from the Rev Lesley Carroll, via QUB’s Mindfields blogsite… http://blogs.qub.ac.uk/politicalmindfields/from-pulpit-to-politics/
OFFICERS’ WIVES GET PUDDING AND PIES: SOLDIERS’ WIVES GET SKILLY by Donal Kennedy
That’s according to the old British Army story. You might well believe it. Particularly, if like me, you bother checking old newspapers. For instance there was an interesting Editorial in THE TIMES of London on 11 April 1912. The previous day the Labour Leader, Keir Hardie, proposed in the House of Commons that soldiers be […]
How to discredit someone who criticises (that’s you, Gerry Adams)
As the world and its big sister know by now, Gerry Adams was refused entry to the White House over St Patrick’s Day. He waited for over an hour to see if whatever impediment was blocking him could be removed, then left when it wasn’t. He later said he considered his being barred unacceptable and that […]
NO GO AREA FOR GERRY
I see Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, the third largest political party in Ireland, was barred from a White House reception in Washington for the Friends of Ireland.If you wanted to make some waves and encourage the voters to come out in their droves in support of Sinn Fein, that might be the kind […]