I’ve just finished reading Cormac Moore’s book on the Irish Boundary Commission (published this year, the 100th ‘anniversary’ – if that’s the right word – of the conclusion of the Commission’s enquiries). The broad facts behind the setting up of…
Author: Bruce Gaston
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Two very recent articles in the Guardian on Irish themes:
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The Irishwomen who became the paramour of a disastrous South American dictator: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/24/paraguay-madame-lynch-irish-woman-hero
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An update on the digital recreation of the records of the Irish Public Record Office (destroyed in the Irish Civil War, as described here): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/30/pioneering-project-releases-more-lost-irish-records-spanning-700-years
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The Irish government has released some previously classified documents at the turn of the year. There are some that cast light on events in Northern Ireland and Ireland more generally.
The Guardian reports on stories aof acrimonious meetings between David Trimble, leader of the UUP, and Tony Blair, in the period after the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1997: David Trimble was ‘extraordinarily rude’ to Tony Blair at Good Friday talks
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/27/david-trimble-was-extraordinarily-rude-to-tony-blair-at-good-friday-talks
Another headline, “Diana apparently believed Northern Ireland part of the Republic, archive shows” seems to put the worst spin on what may have been a slip of the tongue or a poorly expressed pleasantry. Make up your own mind here.
Belfast, Queen’s Bridge (Edwardian period?)
Oilettte Postcard of Belfast, Queen’s Bridge
An “oilette”* postcard from the Leonard A. Lauder collection of Raphael Tuck & Sons postcards (Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection) via https://archive.org/details/nby_LL7497
*Introduced in 1903, Oilettes were promoted by the company as “veritable miniature oil paintings.” See: https://publications.newberry.org/tuck/#/
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Anyone interested in modern Irish and especially Northern Irish history will definitely want to listen to ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s recently launched podcast on the Northern Ireland peace process.
Here’s a link:
Irish History Compressed e-book on sale from 15 December 2022
My book Irish History Compressed (the new and updated second edition) will be available as part of the Smashwords 2022 End of Year Sale! This is a chance to get my book, along with books from many other great authors,…
Irish History Compressed e-book – second edition
A revised and slightly expanded version of my short history of Ireland should be available from all good e-book retailers by the time you read this. A couple of years ago, when the offer came to translate the original e-book…
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Cheering news for everyone interested in Ireland’s history: the mammoth project to recreate in virtual form the Public Records Office in Dublin’s Four Courts has been officially unveiled. (It can’t be said it’s been completed – indeed, it’s doubtful it ever can be.)
You can read about the destruction of the original archive here.
[Note: this post should have been published in May. For some reason it landed in the “drafts” folder instead.]
Eine komprimierte Geschichte Irlands:
Irish History Compressed in German
I’m delighted to say that the (still unpublished) second edition of Irish History Compressed has been translated into German. I decided that the first edition (which ended with the economic crash of 2008) needed updated to take into account the…
On this day: The Signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
On this day, after over a month of arduous and sometimes ill-tempered negotiation, delegates representing Dáil Éireann, the break-away Irish parliament, signed an agreement with the British government that brought to an end the political violence that had wracked Ireland…