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: Ulster Unionists
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…
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…
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…
1984: UK Government considered repartition of Northern Ireland
Every January the British National Archives prompt a flurry of historical recollections and reflections when they release a tranche of previoulsy confidential government documents under the “thirty-year rule”. This year, 1984 comes under the spotlight, a year in which the…
The Sash by the Seaside: A Brief History of the Republic of Ireland’s Only Orange Parade | The Dustbin of History
Fascinating: The Sash by the Seaside: A Brief History of the Republic of Ireland’s Only Orange Parade | The Dustbin of History.
The Good Friday Agreement
To mark Good Friday, here’s a piece on the build-up to the Belfast Agreement, better known as the Good Friday Agreement after the day it was concluded. Background Events that took place over a long period before 1994 had prepared…
The Re-Introduction of Direct Rule in Northern Ireland: 24 March 1972
Forty years ago on this day, the British government reassumed direct control of the province of Northern Ireland, thus ending one half of an early British experiment with devolution. (The other half, the establishment of a semi-independent ‘Dominion–style’ government in…