Category Archives: Politics

Reprise: Speechwriter behind Obama’s Irish references

UPDATE: Cody Keenan’s Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America, released in October by HarperCollins, is the subject of this Nov. 11 Irish Times‘ podcast.

ORIGINAL POST:

Barack Obama has given some 3,000 speeches since entering the White House in 2009, and about 1 percent of them have included strong references to Ireland. That might not seem like much at first glance, but there’s hardly another country or subject that gets as many mentions from the presidential podium.

Obama speechwriter Cody Keenan, left, interviewed by Simon Carswell, Washington correspondent for The Irish Times.

Obama speechwriter Cody Keenan, left, interviewed by Simon Carswell, Washington correspondent for The Irish Times.

“The Irish have a stranglehold on one full day,” Obama speechwriter Cody Keenan told the 15 September gathering of Irish Network-DC. “They get three speeches on St. Patrick’s Day.”

That’s 24 speeches over eight years. Other notable Obama talks involving Ireland have included his May 2011 visit to the Republic and June 2013 trip to Northern Ireland, plus his 2009 eulogy of Sen. Ted Kennedy and  2015 remarks at the funeral of Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joe Biden.

For Keenan, an Irish-American with ancestral roots to Dublin and Cork, the 2011 College Green speech was a plum assignment. “It’s rare you get to write about something you have such personal passion about,” he said.

Keenan noted that the president “is his own chief speechwriter. … We take all our cues from him.”

Hearing the Irish Civil War silence breakers

Queen’s University Belfast lecturer Síobhra Aiken has detailed the 100-year history of how officially and collectively sanctioned silence about the Irish Civil War is regularly pierced by the silence breakers who have documented the “unspeakable war.” Aiken’s new book, Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (Irish Academic Press), also notes the irony that recent generations of silence breakers are often unaware they belong to such a lineage because the earlier efforts have been forgotten.

The June 1922 to May 1923 war sparked by the Irish republican split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty has notoriously been absent from Irish school texts and memoirs, Aiken said. Ireland’s “Decade of Centenaries” commemorations of the revolutionary period originally was to end this year, excluding the civil war. But public outcry resulted in an extension that is allowing the country to grapple with its legacy through next year.

“The paradox of intentionally forgetting is that it ensures attention,” Aiken said during her Oct. 25 lecture for the Irish Studies program at Boston College. This has typically been accomplished over the century through autobiographical novels and other works of fiction, many of them created by women. But these sources have been overlooked or dismissed by the “strong gatekeeping” of mainstream historians and more established male writers, she said.

Síobhra Aiken at Boston College.

Some of the works Aiken citied include: Tragedies of Kerry, 1922-1923, by Dorothy Macardle, 1924; Legion of the Rearguard, by Francis Carty, 1934; The Bitter Glass, by Eilís Dillon, 1958; and The Scorching Wind, by Walter Macken, 1966. More Irish writers have tackled the civil war since the new century began, aided by access to digital resources such as the Bureau of Military History and Military Service Pension Collection. Contemporary writer Orna Ross (Aine McCarthy), who has written about the civil war, has said that “silence is always a magnet.”

Aiken noted that more of the narratives come from the defeated, anti-treaty side, rather than those who supported the new 26-county Irish Free State. Works from the prevailing side are generally more disillusioned than pro-government or triumphalist. Aiken also acknowledged that in Irish politics, intentional forgetting played a role in helping to maintain stability and allow the state to move forward.

Spiritual Wounds is based on Aiken’s doctoral research at the University of Galway, which was awarded the American Conference for Irish Studies Adele Dalsimer Prize for Distinguished Dissertation in 2021.

Liz II, Liz T, and the lingering links of empire

(This is a developing story and will be updated periodically over the next few days. Reminder to my email subscribers to check the website to see the latest version. MH)

UPDATE 1:

Newsweek reports: Why Some People From Ireland, India Are Celebrating Queen’s Death People in countries formerly controlled by Britain, such as India, Ireland, Australia and Nigeria, were quick to point out the monarchy’s role in the subjugation of their countries.

Out of curiosity a checked the Irish Newspaper Archive for coverage of Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Most of the stories are straightforward. The Irish Press, founded in 1931 by longtime Irish leader Éamon de Valera, included a report that several Dublin cinema owners were kept from showing film coverage of the ceremony by intimation from an unnamed group. The Belfast papers gushed about the event.

ORIGINAL POST:

The death of Queen Elizabeth II and selection of Liz Truss as the U.K.’s new prime minister are a reminder of how Ireland and Britain remained linked across the Irish Sea.

The queen, 96, made a remarkable state visit to the Republic Ireland in May 2011. It was the first by a reigning monarch since her grandfather, King George V, crossed 100 years earlier, a decade before the island’s partition. Elizabeth made earlier and subsequent visits to Northern Ireland, including a memorable June 2012 handshake with former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, then Sinn Féin deputy first minister of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

Michael D. Higgins, president of Ireland, released a statement on the queen’s death. It said, in part:

As we know, the Queen often spoke of how much she enjoyed her own historic State Visit to Ireland in 2011, the first such Visit by a British monarch since Irish independence, and during which she did so much through eloquent word and generous gesture to improve relations between our two islands.

Queen Elizabeth’s Visit was pivotal in laying a firm basis for an authentic and ethical understanding between our countries.  During those memorable few days eleven years ago, the Queen did not shy away from the shadows of the past. Her moving words and gestures of respect were deeply appreciated and admired by the people of Ireland and set out a new, forward looking relationship between our nations – one of respect, close partnership and sincere friendship.

Here’s the queen’s speech:

 

Truss, who replaced Boris Johnson, is being widely criticized on both sides of the Irish border. In one of her first moves, Truss appointed pro-Brexit lawmaker Steve Baker to a role in the Northern Ireland Office. Unionist displeasure with how Northern Ireland is treated by Brexit trade protocols has kept the Northern Ireland Assembly elected in May from coming to power.

More on Truss and the queen as I update this post.

On Michael Collins and Abraham Lincoln

UPDATE:

My ongoing research about press coverage of the Irish revolution discovered this passage by Irish journalist Ernest Boyd in the September 1922 issue of Foreign Affairs, two months before the Carl Ackerman piece referenced near the bottom:

The parallel between this loss to Ireland and that of the United States when Lincoln was assassinated has already suggested itself. The parallel is more apt than in the case of most parallels of this kind, for it not only emphasizes the particular hold which Michael Collins had upon the hearts and imaginations of his countrymen, but also reminds us of the hope that emerges from such tragic events. The murder of Lincoln deprived America of her man of destiny, yet the United States fulfilled their destiny without him, and ideals of the dead leader and of the Civil War did not perish.[1]Ernest Boyd, “Ireland: Resurgent and Insurgent,” Foreign Affairs 1, no. 1 (September 15, 1922): 86-97.

ORIGINAL POST:

Michael Collins, the Irish Free State government and army leader, was shot near Bandon, County Cork, on Aug. 22, 1922. For some, his death in the second month of the Irish Civil War evoked the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865, days after the end of the U.S. Civil War.

This dispatch by Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Paul Williams appeared in U.S. newspapers including the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun the day after the Collins shooting. Note the quote about Lincoln in the fourth paragraph:

Baltimore Sun, Aug. 23, 1922. (Story continued).

The unnamed Freeman’s editor most likely was Harry Newton Moore, a Canadian journalist who “shook out picturesque phrases” during his turn in the role.[2]Desmond Ryan, Remembering Sion. Arthur Blake, Ltd. London, 1934. Thanks to Dublin historian Felix M. Larkin for pointing me to this source. The Freeman’s Aug. 24, 1922, editorial about Collins, “Greatest and Bravest,” contained no such reference to Lincoln, nor did the paper’s other assassination coverage.

But during an Aug. 28, 1922, requiem high mass for Collins at St. Michael’s Catholic Church, County Tipperary, the Rev. Joseph McCarthy suggested the slain Irish leader drew inspiration from the late American president. The priest said:

It seems to me he went to a very good master to learn the art of government–Abraham Lincoln. A passage from one of Lincoln’s great addresses quoted in speeches by Michael Collins might well have been in his mind as a guiding motto, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right–as God gives us to see the right–let us serve on to the finish the work we are in, to build up the nation’s wounds.'[3]”Tipperary’s Grief, Eloquent Clerical Tributes” Evening Echo, Aug. 29, 1922. Also quoted in Irish Independent, same day.

Collins quoted this familiar passage from Lincoln’s second inaugural address (Given 41 days before his assassination.) in an April 23, 1922, speech at Tralee, County Kerry, according to the Cork Examiner.[4]”At Tralee, Very Successful Meeting”, The Cork Examiner, April 25, 1922. Collins and Arthur Griffith also released a joint statement shortly after a peace conference earlier that month at the Mansion House in Dublin failed to resolve difference between factions for and against the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Their statement quoted Lincoln’s Nov. 19, 1863, Gettysburg Address, “that government of the people, by the people, shall not perish from the earth.”[5]”Opposition Leaders Turn Down Plebiscite”, Freeman’s Journal, May 1, 1922.

Hearst’s International magazine, November 1922. (Full story linked in Note 5.)

American journalist Carl W. Ackerman made the Lincoln connection in the headline and final paragraph of his November 1922 magazine remembrance: “Ireland tomorrow will be a united, prosperous, homogenous country, and in her history Collins. for all time, will stand out as the Lincoln of Ireland.”[6]”The Dream of Ireland’s Lincoln” , Hearst’s International, November 1922, Vol. XLII, No. 5, p 81. Ackerman had interviewed Collins in July 1920, “when he was a fugitive” from the British army, the article’s introductory text noted. Collins gave more regular press interviews after the July 1921 truce, including with Americans Samuel Duff McCoy and Hayden Talbot. (More on Talbot in an upcoming post.)

In a modern assessment, John Dorney made a different connection between Collins and Lincoln. The Dublin historian, in an Aug. 17, 2017, article for The Irish Story, questioned whether the former was the founder of Irish democracy or an aspirant dictator. Dorney wrote:

Collins, had he had the chance to defend himself in later years, from charges he was an aspirant dictator, would no doubt have argued that putting off the opening of the Third Dáil in July and August 1922 was merely a short-term emergency measure and not a portent of any kind of dictatorship.

He might have cited the parallel between himself and Abraham Lincoln, the American president during that country’s civil war. Like Collins, Lincoln’s enemies characterized him as a ‘tyrant’ and like Collins, Lincoln did take all the measures he felt necessary to win the Civil War and save the Union. In 1861 for instance, he too suspended habeus corpus, imposed censorship and military courts and shut down the legislatures of ‘disloyal’ states such as Maryland.

Just like Collins, Lincoln justified such measures on the grounds that he was fighting so that ‘government of the people for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth’. Regarding the suspension of habeas corpus, Lincoln contended that it was necessary if the laws of the Union were to have any meaning, ‘are all the laws [of the United States] but one [the right to trial] to go unexecuted?’ he wrote.

Civil wars and assassinations are bloody business, in any country, at any time. And we are left to ponder “what might have been” had such leaders lived longer lives.

(NOTE: I revised the first paragraph to remove that Collins was “assassinated,” as this seems a matter of some debate. Explore my full “American Reporting on Irish Independence” series. MH)

References

References
↑1 Ernest Boyd, “Ireland: Resurgent and Insurgent,” Foreign Affairs 1, no. 1 (September 15, 1922): 86-97.
↑2 Desmond Ryan, Remembering Sion. Arthur Blake, Ltd. London, 1934. Thanks to Dublin historian Felix M. Larkin for pointing me to this source.
↑3 ”Tipperary’s Grief, Eloquent Clerical Tributes” Evening Echo, Aug. 29, 1922. Also quoted in Irish Independent, same day.
↑4 ”At Tralee, Very Successful Meeting”, The Cork Examiner, April 25, 1922.
↑5 ”Opposition Leaders Turn Down Plebiscite”, Freeman’s Journal, May 1, 1922.
↑6 ”The Dream of Ireland’s Lincoln” , Hearst’s International, November 1922, Vol. XLII, No. 5, p 81.

UK’s Johnson resigns; Northern Ireland impacts developing

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned after months of political scandal. He will remain on the job until the ruling Tories select a new leader. That decision will have enormous impact in Northern Ireland, where the Assembly government remains in limbo two months after elections and Brexit continues to cause friction between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists. It also will impact relations with Ireland and the European Union. This post will evolve over several days from July 7. Email subscribers should check the website for updates. MH

Boris Johnson

UPDATES:

Johnson’s resignation has left Northern Ireland in a “precarious situation” and could delay the restoration of the Assembly at Stormont, the grand secretary of the Orange Order has warned at July Twelfth commemorations. The Irish Times quotes Rev. Mervyn Gibson as saying that while the Brexit trade protocol remains in place “there’ll be no Northern Ireland Executive and we want to get government back in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible.”

Unionists oppose the protocol, which avoided a hard border on the island of Ireland by placing an economic border in the Irish Sea.

Annual Orange Order parades to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, this year marking its 332nd anniversary, are returning to normal footing following two years of COVID disruptions. Police estimate that 250 bonfires were lit the night of July 11, with nearly 600 parades to take place on July 12. The BBC NI ditched its live broadcast coverage after two year of pandemic layoff. 

***

Shailesh Vara has replaced Brandon Lewis as Northern Ireland secretary. Lewis was among the once-loyal cabinet members who stepped down to force out Johnson. Vara was a minister in the Northern Ireland Office for five months before quitting in November 2018 to protest former prime minister Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal with the EU.

See Vera’s official statement.

ORIGINAL POST:

“The downfall of Boris Johnson comes as a huge relief to the government in Dublin, which has been locked in a long running conflict with him over the Northern Ireland Protocol,” Stephen Collins writes in The Irish Times. “However, it would be foolish to assume that things will necessarily improve under his successor as Conservative Party leader, or even under a Labour government … The lesson from the entire Brexit saga is that the two big parties in the UK are so focused on narrow party political advantage that they are prepared to ignore the long term interests of the British people, never mind the consequences of their actions for the island of Ireland.”

Sounds like Republicans and Democrats in the USA.

“It has been an utter absurdity that the people here have been subjected to Boris Johnson for any length of time,” Northern Assembly First Minister (Designate) Michell O’Neill of Sinn Féin tweeted. “He is a figure of absolute disrepute. Anyone who tries to sabotage our peace agreements, a quarter century of progress and our shared future is truly no friend of ours.”

The BBC has more reactions from other Northern Irish and Irish leaders.

Sinn Féin wins historic vote in Northern Ireland

UPDATE 3, May 7:

Sinn Féin has secured an historic election win in Northern Ireland, the first time an Irish republican party has topped the vote since the 1921 partition of the six counties. With 88 of 90 seats decided, the nationalists have held the 27-seat total of the 2017 election, while the unionist DUP has dropped to three seats to 25. The moderate, non-sectarian Alliance Party has finished third with 17 seats, more than double the eight members elected in the last election.

“This was a significantly and symbolically damaging (outcome) for unionism,” The Irish Times says.

While Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has said a border referendum on a united Ireland is possible in five years, the first order of business will be establishing the power-sharing Executive, which the DUP collapsed earlier this year in protest against Brexit-related trade restrictions. The party has vowed not to re-enter government until its concerns are met.

***

A second story line is emerging in the election: the centrist, non-sectarian Alliance Party has doubled its vote total since the 2017 poll to 16 seats as Sinn Féin remains on pace to win the most seats. As of midday Saturday (U.S. Eastern), 77 of 90 races had been decided.

“The rise of the nonaligned middle ground, signaled clearly in a breakthrough result for the Alliance may prove to be the most significant aspect of the elections,” Irish Times Political Editor Pat Leahy writes as the vote is still counted. “Perhaps the most important long-term implication of the results is the accelerating emergence of the third pillar of Northern Irish politics and society: the ‘neithers’, neither tribally orange nor green, identifying not as unionist nor nationalist, not British nor Irish but Northern Irish.”

UPDATE 2, May 6:

“Sinn Féin has topped the first preference vote with a 29 percent share and is on course to become the largest party at Stormont while the DUP received 21.3 percent share of the first preference vote – a drop of 7 percent since the last Assembly election in 2017,” the Belfast Telegraph reports. The nationalist party added 1.1 percent to its total. The centrist Alliance Party gained 4.5 percent first preference votes, while the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice, which split off from the DUP in 2007, surged 5.1 percent.

The Irish Times says the DUP, which was the largest party in the last Assembly with 28 seats, is in danger of dropping two or more seats. Sinn Féin is likely to at least hold the 27 seats it won in 2017 and therefore in position as the party leader in the North. A pickup of additional seats would make even more headlines.

***

Sinn Féin Vice President Michelle O’Neill, the nationalist party’s Northern Ireland leader, and DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, have each been re-elected. The pair are key figures in whatever happens in the Northern Ireland Assembly once the full election results become clear.

The early vote tally as of midday in the Eastern United States was Sinn Féin, 10; DUP, 2; Alliance 2; and UUP, 1. That leaves 75 seat to still be decided. The final outcome is not expected until May 7.

UPDATE 1, May 5:

Voting has ended in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections. Counting begins Friday morning, May 6, at centers in Belfast, Jordanstown, and Magherafelt. The first results are expected by late morning U.S. Eastern time.

Officials have given a preliminary turnout estimate of 54 percent. The official final turnout figure in the 2017 Assembly election was 64 percent.

ORIGINAL POST, May 5:

The Belfast Telegraph reported that the major political party leaders voted early in day: Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill in Clonoe; Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in Dromore; Ulster Unionist Party’s (UUP) Doug Beattie in Portadown; Alliance’s Naomi Long in East Belfast; Social Democratic and Labor Party’s (SDLP) Colum Eastwood in Derry, and Traditional Unionist Voice’s (TUV) Jim Allister in Kells.

The Assembly uses the single transferable vote system, which ranks candidates by preference. Five representatives are elected in each of 18 constituencies across the six counties for a total of 90 members of the legislative assembly (MLAs). A total of 239 candidates are running, including a record 87 women.

Sinn Féin is fielding 34 candidates, followed by the DUP with 30. UUP has 27, Alliance, 24; SDLP, 22; TUV, 19; the Green Party, 18; and People Before Profit, 12.

In 2017, DUP won 28 seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly, one more than Sinn Féin’s 27 MLAs. The SDLP won 12 seats, UUP picked up 10, Alliance had eight, the Green Party two seats, and People Before Profit and the TUV had one MLA each.

Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building in Belfast.

Northern Ireland readies for Assembly elections

Northern Ireland could turn nationalist for the first time since the island’s 1921 partition as voters May 5 select 90 representatives to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The six-county appendage of Great Britain has historically been governed by its pro-union, predominantly Protestant majority, with Catholics generally favoring the island’s political reunification. Now, a potent mix of economic and social issues and changing demographics rival the “perennial preoccupation with orange versus green,” The Irish Times has said, while also conceding that “unionism versus nationalism retains its drama.”

One potential outcome: the nationalist Sinn Féin party win the most seats, as polling indicates, but a bloc of multiple unionist parties block it from taking the first minister leadership post. That could cause a stalemate that prevents a new Assembly from being seated.

Below are links to some pre-election guides and background sources. I’ll aggregate coverage as the results become clear by the May 7-8 weekend and beyond. MH

Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building in Belfast.

Catching up with modern Ireland

A periodic post of curated content …

Northern Ireland Assembly election are scheduled for May 5. The DUP’s Paul Givan resigned in early February as the power-sharing Executive’s first minister to protest the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Brexit-driven trade rules that separate the region from the rest of Britain. Givan’s move resulted in Sinn Féin‘s Michelle O’Neill losing her role as deputy first minister and cast doubt on whether the Executive, or the Assembly, could return after the election … if it takes place. The New York Times featured Upheaval in Northern Ireland, With Brexit at Its Center.

  • Ireland is repealing nearly all of its COVID-19 restrictions as the pandemic reaches its second anniversary. Overall, Ireland did pretty well dealing with the pandemic when compared with how other countries responded, Irish Times Public Affairs Editor Simon Carswell told the Feb. 27 In The News podcast.
  • U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Ireland this summer, according to media reports that surfaced before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He visited his ancestral County Mayo homeland as vice president in 2016 and 2017.
  • Claire D. Cronin presented her credentials as United States Ambassador to Ireland to President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins on Feb. 10. Cronin is 25th U.S. ambassador to Ireland and third woman in the role, following Margaret Heckler and Jean Kennedy Smith.

Higgins, left, and Cronin.

History notes:

  • Two former nuns created a “Coastal Camino” that is bringing travelers to an otherwise neglected part of Northern Ireland, reports BBC’s Travel section.
  • Seventh century Irish monks who were largely responsible for transforming this sacrament into the version with which we’re familiar, John Rodden writes in Commonweal.
  • My story on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday for History News Network at George Washington University.

See previous “Catching up with modern Ireland” columns and annual “Best of the Blog.”

Presentation thank you & suggested reading

My thanks to the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh for the opportunity to make my Feb. 17 presentation, “The Irish Revolution in Pittsburgh.” If you couldn’t attend, watch the recorded version, which should be posted within the next few days.

As promised to live attendees, here is some suggested Irish reading that will keep you busy up to St. Patrick’s Day … and beyond:

Irish Pittsburgh:

  • His Last Trip: An Irish American Story, by Mark Holan, 2014. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh called my book “a fascinating snapshot of one family’s Irish-American experience and how their lives were shaped by circumstances here and in Ireland.” Available at CLP and the Heinz History Center.
  • Irish Pittsburgh, by Patricia McElligott, 2013. Part of the Arcadia Publishing series about people and places, mostly photos and captions.
  • Pittsburgh Irish: Erin on the Three Rivers, by Gerard F. O’Neil, 2015. A more detailed general history.
  • “Across ‘The Big Wather,’ The Irish Catholic Community of Mid-Nineteenth Century Pittsburgh”, by Victor A. Walsh in The Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, Vol. 66, No. 1, January 1983.
  • “A Fanatic Heart: The Cause of Irish-American Nationalism in Pittsburgh During the Gilded Age,” by Victor A. Walsh in Journal of Social History, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter 1981.

General histories:

  • How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall
    of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, by Thomas Cahill, 1995. A bestseller and good
    foundation for subsequent events.
  • Ireland before the Famine, 1798-1848, by Gearoid O Tuathaigh
  • The Depictions of Eviction in Ireland: 1845-1910, by Lewis Perry Curtis, 2011. The late American historian gives an overview of how land-related hardships in rural Ireland during the second half of the 19th century set the stage for the nationalist revolution in the early 20th century.
  • The Modernisation of Irish Society, 1848-1918, by John Joseph Lee
  • The Transformation of Ireland: 1900-2000, by Diarmaid Ferriter, 2004. At 884 pages,
    this book may be more than you want, but it’s surprisingly readable, in part because it is carved up into bite-size subsections. Ferriter is probably Ireland’s most recognized
    contemporary historian. He writes a regular column in The Irish Times.
  • Peace After the Final Battle, 1912-1924, by John Dorney, 2014. The heart of the Irish
    revolutionary period.
  • Irish Rebel: John Devoy and America’s Fight For Ireland’s Freedom, by Terry Golway,
    1999. Devoy’s life and this book stretch from the Famine to the revolutionary period, including the role of the Irish in America. This “popular history” is a fast read.
  • Living With History: Occasional Writings, by Felix M. Larkin. The Dublin historian offers nearly 100 pieces, ranging from 500 to 5,000 words; sectioned under nine themes, including one on American people and events. Written for general audiences.

The Troubles:

It’s said that more books have been written about The Troubles than any other conflict. Maybe.
This go-to database contains more than 22,000 entries.

  • Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by
    Patrick Radden Keefe, 2018. A vivid, street-level view of the viciousness and brutality of the
    Catholic v. Protestant and Irish v. British conflict as told through the particulars of one notorious case. The title is from a 1975 Seamus Heaney poem about the conflict: “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing.”
  • Making Sense of the Troubles: The Story of the Conflict in Northern Ireland, by David McKittrick and David McVea, 2002.

Journalism & travel:

  • Christendom in Dublin, by G. K. Chesterton, 1932. The English writer and Catholic
    convert attended the June 1932 Eucharist Congress in Dublin, which drew an international crowd of about 1 million to the Irish capital a decade after the revolution. Arguably the peak of “Catholic Ireland.” One-sitting essay.
  • Irish Journalism Before Independence: More a Disease Than a Profession, Kevin
    Rafter, editor, 2011. (The subtitle comes from the Dublin Evening Mail, 1908.) Academic
    essays about 19th and early 20th century Irish reporters and reporting.
  • Politics, Culture, and The Irish American Press 1784-1963, Debra Reddin van Tuyll, Mark O’Brien, and Marcel Broersma, editors, 2021. Collection of 15 pieces “tell a number of important stories and provides invaluable insights about journalism, about Ireland, about America, and about the ethnicity of the Irish in America,” Irish Ambassador to the United States Dan Mulhall wrote in the Forward.
  • On Celtic Tides: One Man’s Journey Around Ireland by Sea Kayak, by Chis Duff, 1999;
    and The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border, by Garrett Carr, 2017. Social,
    political, and environmental journalism.
  • See Travellers’ Accounts as Source-Material for Irish Historians, by Christopher J. Woods, 2009, and The Tourist’s Gaze, Travellers to Ireland, 1800 to 2000, edited by Glen Hooper, 2001, for further reading ideas.

Poetry & literature:

  • Any collection of poems by William Butler Yeats or Seamus Heaney.
  • Dubliners (1914 short stories) and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916 novel) by James Joyce. The Irish capital at the turn of the 20th century.
  • Trinity, by Leon Uris, 1976. A hugely-popular best seller and an early influence on my interests in Irish history. Covers the period from the 1880s up to the 1916 Rising.
  • Transatlantic, by Colum McCann, 2013. Based on three historical events: Frederick
    Douglass’s 1845-46 lecture tour in Ireland; Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown’s 1919 flight
    across the ocean from Newfoundland to Ireland; and U.S. Sen. George Mitchell’s role in
    brokering the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
  • Short Stories of John B. Keane or The Teapots Are Out and Other Eccentric Tales
    From Ireland, or similar collections by the late essayist and playwright affectionately
    known as “John B”. A distant relation from the same corner of County Kerry as both of
    my maternal grandparents and other Irish relations. The dialogue in his short stories and plays perfectly captures their cadence and wit, which I still hear when visiting my living relations in this part of Ireland. More 20th century folklore and folkways, than history.

The North Kerry coast, July 2016.

Catching up with modern Ireland

A periodic post of curated content …

  • As of Jan. 21 the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are easing most COVID-19 restrictions as the pandemic enters its third year. “As we face into our second century as a free democracy, and as we navigate this new phase of COVID, it is time to be ourselves again,” Taoiseach Micheál Martin said.
  • Negotiations to revise the so-called Northern Ireland protocol have warmed under new British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, with the UK and EU trying to reach a deal by the end of February. This will help keep Brexit from jeopardizing Northern Ireland Assembly elections, which are expected in May. The potential ouster of PM Boris Johnson could be a wild card.
  • The Republic imposed a minimum unit price on alcoholic beverages as a public health measure intended to curb binge drinking and reduce alcohol-related health issues, the New York Times reported. The measure is part of 2018 legislation that included limitations on the labeling and marketing of alcoholic beverages — an important step toward combating alcohol abuse in Ireland.
  • The Irish government also has introduced a basic income program for up to 2,000 artists and other culture workers, with €25 million ($28.3 million) allocated to people and venues over three years.
  • Ireland is second only to Germany in the value of assets moved from the UK to EU banks after Brexit. “While Ireland’s international financial services sector has steadily grown over the decades, the UK’s exit from the EU has accelerated this trend, with Ireland now one of the key EU hubs for international banking and capital markets activity,” Fiona Gallagher, chair of the Federation of International Banks in Ireland (FIBI) and CEO of Wells Fargo Bank International, said in the report release.

Notable deaths:

  • Aoife Beary, 27, a survivor of the Berkeley, Calif., apartment balcony collapse, died Jan. 1, 2022, after suffering a stoke a few days earlier, the Irish Times reported. Five Irish J-1 visa students and one Irish-American died in the June 16, 2015, event, with Beary among seven injured. She suffered a brain injury and subsequently underwent open heart surgery. … See my 2016 post, ‘When Bloomsday feels like doomsday’.
  • No sooner had Beary’s funeral passed than Ireland was shocked by the murder of 23-year-old teacher Ashling Murphy while jogging a canal path near Tullamore. “The murder has shocked the country and around 100 vigils were organised the length and breadth of Ireland and Northern Ireland, including outside Dublin’s parliament,” Reuters reported. The killer was still at large as of this post.

History notes:

  • The Journal.ie published a 50th anniversary timeline of 1972 events in Northern Ireland, the bloodiest year of The Troubles. A staggering 480 people, mostly civilians, were killed that year, compared to 297 in 1976 and 294 in 1974, the second and third highest yearly totals. … The International Fund for Ireland (IFI) reported that more than 100 barriers still separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in the North more than two decades after the Good Friday Agreement. The so-called “peace walls” include high concrete walls, gates, fences, and even private and government-owned buildings. Nearly 70 percent of all conflict-related killings in Belfast between 1966 and 2001 took place within one third of a mile of a peace-wall, IFI said in a Jan. 5 tweet.
  • A shroud of uncertainty hangs over the American Irish Historical Society as the New York City institution marks its 125 anniversary this year. The New York State Attorney General’s Office investigation into financial improprieties announced nearly a year ago remains open. “What is certain is that the questions originally posed still require answers, that the status quo cannot be maintained, and that the Society requires immediate reform and restructuring,” former AIHS Chairman Brian McCabe wrote in the Irish Echo.
  • Tentative steps are being taken to digitize the Irish Land Commission’s vast files to public. This will not happen quickly, but it is a great step forward.

Colebrooke Park in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.               Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland content pool.