One hundred years ago this week, on 22 June 1921, the official opening of a new parliament within the the United Kingdom took place. After elections on 24 May across the newly created entity of “Northern Ireland” (made up of…
Tag: Northern Ireland
Two Northern Irish book reviews:
Paramilitary Loyalism: Identity and Change/A Difficult Birth: The Early Years of Northern Ireland, 1920–5
Richard Reed, Paramilitary Loyalism: Identity and Change (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) Alan F. Parkinson, A Difficult Birth: The Early Years of Northern Ireland, 1920–5 (Dublin: Eastwood, 2020) As preparation for a guest lecture I gave at the University of…
Review of The Border by Diarmaid Ferriter
The Border: The Legacy of a Century of Anglo-Irish Politics Diarmaid Ferriter Profile Books London A combination of the Decade of Commemoration in Ireland and the shenanigans around a Brexit deal have led to a renewed focus on the…
Ulster v Eire: The Unification Question (1938)
An ex-colleague sent me this link. It’s apparently a contemporary newsreel, and the general tone is all very much of its time. It’s quite odd, though, and a bit inaccurate too. At 1 min. 28 they show what must be…
Declassified Papers 2017-18 edition
The yearly declassification of secret government papers under the "30 year rule" continues to produce interesting material – especially as far as Northern Irish history is concerned, as 30 years ago means 1987, right in the middle of The Troubles.…
Review of Unapproved Routes by Peter Leary
I saw this advertised somewhere recently and as it seemed relevant to my teaching about Northern Ireland at the minute I ordered it and read it. It’s an attractively produced little volume with elegant typesetting and a number of well…
A Beginner’s Guide to the Anglo-Irish Agreement
What? The Anglo-Irish Agreement. Not to be confused with The Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921). When? Signed on 15th November 1985. Where? Hillsborough, Northern Ireland. Why? Both the UK government and the Irish government had been alarmed by the electoral and PR…
Loyalist paramilitaries:
An overview
In the Troubles loyalists killed 990 people; 708 simply because they were Catholics.1 The question is “Why?” Main Groupings The two most important and longest-established loyalist terrorist groups are: Ulster Volunteer Force founded in 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the…
The Red Hand of Ulster by George A. Birmingham:
A Review
My attention was first called to Ulster-born writer George A. Birmingham by a review of his novel The Major’s Candlesticks on the Reading 1900–1950 blog. That novel is a comedy set in the aftermath of the Irish War of Independence…
State papers: Dublin’s fear of civil war and Provos bankrolled by Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi:
from BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
There wasn’t as much coverage of the revelations contained in declassified government papers this year as there was last year – surprising as they deal with the period of the Anglo-Irish Agreement. There are a few little gems nonetheless, such…