Tag: Irish History
Terence MacSwiney Centenary: Modern Ireland and Historical Revisionism
Today marks the centenary of Terence MacSwiney’s death while in prison during the War of Independence. A playwright, poet, mayor of Cork and IRA commander, MacSwiney passed away after 74 days on hunger strike, bringing worldwide attention to the nationalist...
The Five, and Potential Six, Eras of Irish Nationalism
To anyone that has read a broad history of Ireland, there is a noticeable trend that appears. Ever since the British set foot on our shores, there has been a certain mindset among the Irish that can be characterised as...
Thomas Davis on Patriotism as a Civic Virtue
The following is an extract from the famous patriotic speech given by the Young Ireland founder and nationalist journalist Thomas Davis to Trinity College’s The Hist, of which he was acting president at the time. Typifying the brand of mature...
The Family in Large – The Foundations of Irish Nationality
Our national epic tells us that Ireland was settled by waves of invaders, each struggling against the other for ownership of Ireland. In the final struggle, the goddess Éiru gave the Sons of Mil permission to settle Ireland, in return...
After the Decadence: The Great War in Context: Simon Heffer on Edwardian Britain
The last five years has seen much in the way of remembrance services and solemn acknowledgements of sacrifice made by all those lost during the Great War. Indeed, the “war to end all wars” has sustained a poignancy across Europe...
Cultural Nationalism and Ethnic Nationalism— A Plea for Rapprochement
The most important cleavage in politics today is the cleavage between globalism and nationalism. This is hardly an original statement. Indeed, it has almost become a truism. In country after country, election after election, the burning issue is not economics,...
Defending Dev: Irish Neutrality in WW2 was justified
Dev’s Ireland dodges a bullet Amid the perpetual turmoil of Brexit, a historic occasion passed by almost unnoticed in the Irish public square. The Emergency Powers Act passed through the Oireachtas on the 3rd of September 1939 de facto commenced...
Judging 80’s Ireland
The long overdue apology by an Garda Síochána issued last month to Joanne Hayes, whose life was blighted forever by the almost forgotten “Kerry Babies” scandal, has triggered a thoroughly risible campaign to re-write recent Irish history. The media coverage...