Bitter Freedom: Ireland in a Revolutionary World 1918-1923 Maurice Walsh Faber & Faber So much has been published about the Irish revolutionary period (1910-1923) over the course of the last few years that one has to be selective about…
Tag: History of Ireland
A Beginner’s Guide to the First Dáil
What? The first Dáil. OK, and again, what? “Dail”? No, “Dáil”, with a fada. That accent thingy? Yes. What does it do? It changes the pronunciation. And the correct pronunciation would be? Doyle. As in Mrs Doyle? From Father Ted?…
Dates, dates, dates…
Prompted by my ongoing quest to identify the “six times [meaning six rebellions] during the last three hundred years” referred to in the 1916 Proclamation, “Mixed messages” (@SignsThe Reading) was kind enough to send me some photos of monuments in…
A Beginner’s Guide to the Gallipoli Campaign
What? The Battle of Gallipoli. Also known as? The Dardanelles Campaign Where? I suppose you’re going to say “Gallipoli” aren’t you? Yes — the Gallipoli Peninsula in what is now Turkey, which forms the nothern bank of the Dardanelles Strait,…
A Short History of Ireland in Spanish and Portuguese:
"Uma História Resumida Da Irlanda/Historia Resumida De Irlanda"
Exciting news: IHC’s e-book guide to Irish history has been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, with an Italian translation in progress. As well as Amazon, all the usual retailers are stocking it: Apple, Google Play, Scribd, Kobo and so on,…
Who was Felix Park?
Nowadays, of course, there’s Irish History Compressed to deal with these kinds of annoyances!
The Flight of the Earls
This post was originally written on Quora in answer to the question: “Irish History: What was the ‘Flight of the Earls’, and why was it important?” This is my response: It probably matters most because of what it symbolised. The…
Was Patrick Pearse bad at maths, or at history, or at both (or at neither)???
The 1916 Proclamation is probably the best known piece of writing in Irish history, but recently I was asked a question about it I just can’t answer. In the text, Patrick Pearse1 refers to previous uprisings and rebellions as precedents…
Book Review: Fatal Path by Ronan Fanning
This book was published last year to much acclaim. There were lots of complimentary reviews, and I’m not going to dissent here from the majority view. Ronan Fanning is Professor Emeritus of Modern History at University College Dublin and this…
Book Review: Vanished Kingdoms, by Norman Davies
I bought this book on a whim, partly because I guessed (correctly) that it would have something in it about the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is a casual interest of mine. Judging by what I’ve found on the internet, the book…