Modern Ireland

This paper analyses the strength of the new laws regulating lobbying in Ireland and the United Kingdom (UK). This examination was conducted using the Centre for Public Integrity’s (CPI) “Hired Guns” quantitative method for assessing the stringency of lobbying legislation. These laws were introduced, after years of unfulfilled promises and scandals, in an effort to increase the public’s trust in their representative institutions. We find that the Irish Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 offers a slightly higher level of transparency than the UK’s Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014. Additionally, using the CPI’s index allows our findings to be compared with those from other jurisdictions around the world with lobbying regulations in place.

This paper sets out to develop an improved framework for examining critical junctures. This a priori framework is a significant improvement over existing critical juncture frameworks that lack any predictive element. It is an advance for historical institutionalism in particular, and political science in general. After the new framework is set out in detail here, it is tested. The framework is used to examine a number of potential critical junctures in macroeconomic policy, drawn from Ireland, Sweden, Britain, and America in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Early intervention (EI) programs face severe and often condemnatory critique. Some common criticisms arising within the social science literature concern the burden of moral blame that EI programs supposedly place upon parents; the use of inaccurate or misleading scientific ‘evidence’; and the absorption of children from minority or peripheral backgrounds into the dominant culture. These criticisms might be unwarranted and must be questioned. In this paper, I draw from ethnographic research conducted with ‘Preparing For Life’ (PFL), an EI program operating in Darndale, Ireland. Research with this population provides ways of responding to criticisms frequently levelled at EI. In defending this argument, I propose approaching the debate about EI from at ethical rather than a political perspective.

Sunday Times 13 July 2014

In Justine McCarthy's article about Joyce McSharry, who was separated from her mother in the Bethany Home in 1951, the solicitor David Phelan of Hayes & Sons disclaimed knowledge of an irregular 'Adoption Agreement' written by the firm (Quest for lost mother ends at graveside, News, last week).
    In the 'Agreement' Ralph Walker of Hayes & Sons, nephew of Bethany Home residential secretary Hettie Walker, was named as the 'attorney' of Joyce's mother, Emily Sheppey.
    This was so as to arrange a future legal adoption without consulting Emily.
    Derek Leinster and I wrote to Hayes & Sons between 2010-11.
    The firm also wrote the 'Adoption Agreement' which saw Derek handed to a dysfunctional family in 1945.
    In 2011 a representative volunteered without explanation that he approached a retired partner to see if he could shed light on the mystery. The person concerned is a son of the Bethany Matron. She witnessed the 1951 'Agreement' and remained as matron until the home closed in 1972.
    He too was “not aware of the existence of any records relating to Bethany Home”.
    I wrote again on July 3 with regard to the Emily Sheppey 'Agreement', indicating that this indicated ongoing engagement between the home and the firm.
    I am informed that such documentation should not be destroyed and also that, if destroyed, a record would normally be kept.
    Mr Phelan wrote to me at 8.39pm on Friday July 4th that unsuccessful "searches have been carried out", and that therefore "there is nothing more we can do".
    I suggested to Mr Phelan that "If the documents have been removed from your firm you are unlikely to find them in it".
    I also asked Mr Phelan to consider calling in the authorities if he concludes that important documentation was removed in a possibly unauthorized manner.
    Whatever he decides, Children separated from their parents in the Bethany Home would appreciate if Mr Phelan could provide them with more information.

Niall Meehan, Faculty Head, Journalism & Media, Griffith College Dublin.

Some aspects of the history of social science research in Ireland, such as the work of Arensberg and Kimball, have been repeatedly revisited and reappraised. Others have been largely ignored and neglected. This paper revisits one such victim of neglect: a research project on the morale of Dublin busmen carried out by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the early 1960s within the twin contexts of turbulent industrial relations and fledgling Irish social science research capacity building. This working paper does not focus principally on the theoretical framework, fieldwork methods or empirical findings of the Tavistock study as published in 1967. Instead it examines the abortion of the project as originally conceived at what should have been its half-way stage together with the party political rows and media spinning that took place over its dead body.

On 18 April 2019, by-stander Lyra McKee was killed while a group of teenagers and young men rioted against the PSNI in the Northern Irish city of Derry. During these riots, two masked gunmen of the “New IRA” fired up to ten shots at three PSNI Land Rovers. The recruitment of teenagers into the ranks of dissident Irish republicans has raised concern that a new generation of young adults born after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement is prepared to continue acts of political violence in Ireland. This article will examine the motivations and ideology of teenagers and young adults in dissident Irish republican organisations. It is based on a series of in-depth interviews with members of the dissident republican youth organisation Na Fianna Éireann in the Dublin region. The interview data show four broad motivational factors for teenagers and young adults to join the republican youth organisation, Na Fianna Éireann, in the Republic of Ireland. These four are: First, working-class background, with its related deprivation and social problems (such as criminality and drug addiction); second, the importance of family links and social networks; third, social media as an introduction to republicanism; and, fourth, fascination with Irish history.

This book chapter examines Herbert Remmel’s childhood experience which juxtaposed Hitler’s Germany and de Valera’s neutral Ireland. Born in 1936 in Cologne he experienced the war from the perspective of a child. As a fortunate nine year old, he escaped the bombed out Rhineland by taking advantage of a humanitarian operation involving the Irish Red Cross and the Save the German Children Society (SGCS). He landed off the mail-boat from Liverpool at Dun Laoghaire in Dublin on 27 July 1946 as a member of the first group of approximately 80 German children arriving under the scheme. Herbert’s experiences with his two Irish foster families instilled in the young German boy a deep and intimate appreciation of Ireland, its society, the Irish sense of place, the people’s traditions, the Irish rural way of life and Irish nationalism. Though only in Ireland for just under three years, the interlude was indelibly imprinted on his being and identity. His experience granted him rare insights into both his native fatherland, Germany, and his fostering motherland, Ireland.

A new book published to coincide with the centenary of the Easter Rising of 1916 comprehensively details the impact of key events in County Kerry and the critical roles played by Kerry men and women in the rebellion and sets that story in its rightful context in the wider revolutionary period. The important social and political developments in the county before and during 1916 and the contribution of the many Kerry natives who played major roles locally, in Dublin and elsewhere are chronicled for the first time.

Historian and Kerry native, Professor Joe Lee, who writes the foreword to the book, says its contents “are not only of intense interest in themselves, but often base important original research on indispensable local knowledge. Editorially augmented by often elusive biographical information on important personalities, they further enhance this significant volume for students not only of Kerry history but of those numerous aspects of the history of Ireland which have been enriched by Kerry’s contribution.”

By: James de Haan M.Phil Candidate (2012): Trinity College, Dublin de Haan 1 In 1910, Rev. Dr. Patrick Finegan was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Kilmore, coming into control of a largely agricultural area covering all of County Cavan along with parts of Sligo, Meath, Leitrim and Fermanagh. He was a conservative man, stuck close to magisterium teachings and, at first glance, would seem aloof from his diocese. The Kilmore Archives contain very few of his personal correspondences, and most of what has been left behind are old Lenten pastorals and what few articles he sent to newspapers. In these he comes across as rigid and unmoving, especially during the civil war. Cavan was not particularly affected by violence during this period, and the only historian who has looked at Bishop Finegan's actions in his diocese during the civil war was Father Daniel Gallegly who, despite doing an excellent job outlining his actions during the War of Independence, was less than thorough in covering Bishop Finegan's running of the diocese during the Civil War, likely due to the little source material readily available. But if scholars look beyond the lack of personal correspondence and at his actions, a clearer view of Bishop Finegan emerges.

The Revolution Papers is a weekly newspaper that tells the story of the Irish revolution from 1916 to 1923 by reproducing newspapers covering key events in the period. As editor, I write a review of the newspapers in each issue. This review is from our first issue which was published on 28 December 2015. For further details, please visit http://therevolutionpapers.ie/

This paper focuses on the difficulties Kathleen O'Brennan faced as a political radical and foreigner operating as an Irish republican activist in the United States. In 1920, O'Brennan constructed for herself and the American Women Pickets for the Enforcement of America's War Aims an American identity rooted in popular conceptions of the American Revolution. This let her work more effectively at the same time that it allowed feminists, radicals, and leftists to campaign for U.S. recognition of the Irish Republic in the face of opposition from the conservative Friends of Irish Freedom and American nativists. Yet once Irish republican politicians established the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, thus shaping their own acceptable American identity, they made it difficult for the radical O'Brennan to act as an Irish nationalist in the United States. In defiance, O'Brennan and Dr. Gertrude B. Kelly formed American auxiliaries of the Irish White Cross. Irish politicians and their American organization, however, foiled O'Brennan's efforts by branding her un-American, and, therefore, un-Irish. O'Brennan's activities show that displays of American patriotism and American character served as political tools in the transatlantic Irish republican cause, but the movement ultimately depended on who could best use American identities for their own ends.

This year Maynooth College celebrates its 225th anniversary and a beautifully-presented volume captures a multi-dimensional perspective of an institution that has held a singular place in modern Irish Church history. We Remember Maynooth: A College Across Four Centuries, edited by Salvador Ryan and John-Paul Sheridan is a collection of essays that paints a rounded picture of a unique college, through whose hallowed halls have passed both kings and popes.

From modest beginnings in 1795 as a small seminary of thirty students and ten professors, Maynooth expanded rapidly, becoming a Pontifical University, a constituent college of the National University of Ireland and, at one time, the largest seminary in world. It has educated many thousands of students and led the way in many branches of the arts and sciences. And for its alumni it is also a tapestry of rich memories.

Lest these memories dwindle in the collective consciousness, the authors have complied a selection of pen pictures, personal reminiscences and sketches on aspects of the college's life and history. Contributions range from across the spectrum of religious, artistic, political, and academic endeavour, with essays by Archbishop Eamon Martin, Mary O'Rourke, Frank McGuinness, Susan McKenna-Lawlor and Liam Lawton, among many others.

This splendid book is part history, part folk-history, part aide-mémoire. For some, it will be an introduction to this historic centre of learning, for others it will be an evocation of memories, reminiscences and encounters, some that describe actual events and others that delve between the lines of history offering portraits of characters that passed through the college and the people that journeyed with them.

Salvador Ryan is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at St Patrick's College, Maynooth and has published widely on popular religious culture from the Middle ages to the twentieth century. John-Paul Sheridan is a priest of the Diocese of Ferns. He joined the staff at St Patrick's College Maynooth as Education Programmes Coordinator and currently lectures in Religious Educations and Catechesis, Liturgy and Children and Systematic Theology.

We Remember Maynooth: A College Across Four Centuries, edited by Salvador Ryan and JP Sheridan is published in Ireland and the UK by Messenger Publications. Priced at €50/£40

For more information see: www.messenger.ie/product/we-remember-maynooth-a-college-across-four-centuries/

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/40863

This paper re-examines the vexed question of Protestant flight from the South of Ireland during the Irish revolution between 1920 and 1923. The evidence shows that much of this thesis is based on an incorrect understanding and analysis of the published figures. Equally, new data sources can be mined to establish certainty instead of conjecture for the first time. This paper proves that the decline was substantial before the revolution and shows that the drivers of decline initially had little to do with revolution. Undoubtedly, the revolution accelerated the decline for a short period but it quickly returned to pre-revolutionary levels. If the paper bursts some  bubbles then they are worth bursting

Reviews

"Filled with new detail after new detail gleaned from a host of archives and first-hand interviews, this book tells the fascinating story of an iconic party leader and prime minister forced by events into making more concessions than she and her colleagues ever imagined possible. Required reading for anyone interested in the Thatcher era, as well as in the Troubles and the tortuous route out of them." --Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of London, UK

"A major subject, examined through the interrogation of very rich source material. A fascinating study of painfully evolving relationships." --Richard English, author of Does Terrorism Work? A History

Abstract

The first woman elected to lead a major Western power and the longest serving British prime minister for 150 years, Margaret Thatcher is arguably one the most dominant and divisive forces in 20th-century British politics. Yet there has been no overarching exploration of the development of Thatcher’s views towards Northern Ireland from her appointment as Conservative Party leader in 1975 until her forced retirement in 1990. In this original and much-needed study, Stephen Kelly rectifies this.

From Thatcher’s ‘no surrender’ attitude to the Republican hunger strikes to her nurturing role in the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process, Kelly traces the evolutionary and sometimes contradictory nature of Thatcher’s approach to Northern Ireland. In doing so, this book reflects afresh on the political relationship between Britain and Ireland in the late-20th century.

An engaging and nuanced analysis of previously neglected archival and reported sources, Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1975-1990 is a vital resource for those interested in Thatcherism, Anglo-Irish relations, and 20th-century British political history more broadly.

In the late summer of 1798 and through the following year, the forces of the British Crown stationed in the west of Ireland were in hot pursuit of Father Manus Sweeney [an tAthair Manus Mac Suibhne]. Escaping into remote regions of west County Mayo, the outlawed priest evaded his pursuers for many months before he was finally apprehended, convicted of treason and executed. Nevertheless, popular memory of him would linger on into the present day. An examination of how this elusive Mayo hero was remembered by the people of the area can offer an appreciation of the particular workings of local folk history and, while acknowledging influences of the more familiar discourses which tend to dominate discussions of the Irish past - on the one hand scholarly history writing and on the other national myth making - demonstrate that provincial history-telling remained distinct and made a valuable cultural contribution in its own right.

Abstract published on Tax Justice network Blog april 10th 2017:

https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/04/10/tax-haven-blacklisting-13-latin-american-countries/

Tax haven blacklisting in Latin America

As governments (slowly) get to grips with the fact that tax havens are inflicting great harm on economies and democracies across the globe, facilitating mega amounts of tax dodging, and vast movements of criminal money by way of the secrecy services some of them offer, the question of our times is how we deal with them. Attempts to create tax haven blacklists (in order to potentially implement sanctions for non-cooperative jurisdictions) have so far been farcical as we’ve noted many times, most recently commenting on the European Union’s current work compiling its own blacklist system, here and here. So far the criteria for inclusion in tax haven blacklists has been weak, such lists have been ineffective and it’s been far too easy for some of the world’s worst offenders to wriggle their way out of them, or simply be big and bad enough not to worry about being included in the first place – for example – Tax Haven USA. If the EU, or anyone else really wanted to do this properly, the work’s already been done for them – with the best objective ranking available – the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index.
LatAm
Anyway, we were very interested to see that Brazil attempted to tackle Irish tax havenry in September 2016 by putting Ireland on its tax haven blacklist, effective more or less immediately.
Today we’re happy to share an article by Macroeconomics Professor Juan Valerdi [1] (of La Plata National University and El Salvador University) based on the conclusions of his research looking at the approaches of 13 Latin American governments to tackling tax havens. The full document is available here and was part of the campaign “Que las transnacionales paguen lo justo”. The Spanish version of this article was published by ALAI Magazine earlier this month and is available here. (You can read the Professor’s blog here).
...
...
Current and future politicians must assess whether they are willing to confront the Tax Haven Network system and its powerful direct and indirect beneficiaries, or continue to be partners and face the social consequences in their countries, ultimately ending in violent repression. At the heart of this battle that is taking place and will continue to be fought in the next few years is the financing of politics. As long as the political system continues to be linked to illegal activities, donations from the beneficiaries of the Tax Haven Network and support from the media multinationals, the battle will be clearly defined, as well as the consequences.

[1] Juan E Valerdi Economist, Macroeconomic Professor in the La Plata National University and El Salvador University. Formerly part of Jorge Gaggero’s research team on capital flows and tax havens in the CEFID-AR; Consultant in Argentina for UNPD, BID, BIRF; former advisor to the President of the Argentinian National Bank, President of the Argentinian Central Bank, President of the Financial Information Unit, National Deputies of the Argentine Federal Congress; Fiscal Coordinator of the Fiscal and Social Information System (SINTyS); part of the Tax Justice Together Europe Tour 2016 and representative of the Argentinian Central Bank on the Advisor Council of the Federal Tax Administration (AFIP).
[2] This is the case, for example, of Gabriel Zucman perspective on his book “The hidden wealth of the nations” (2015) when he presents the territories that belong to the Tax Havens Network as a group of isolated and weak islands that can be easily attacked with commercial or financial measures without considering them as several networks that benefit powerful forces in central countries and financial centres. That myopic diagnosis explains why Zucman proposes the IMF as part of the solution.

Przedmiotem niniejszej monografii jest wpływ procesu pokojowego w Irlandii Północnej na poziom bezpieczeństwa regionu Wysp Brytyjskich. Praca obejmuje genezę stosunków brytyjsko-irlandzkich od XVI w., ewolucję pozycji Irlandii w polityce brytyjskiej, relacje między Wielką Brytanią a Irlandią w epoce postkolonialnej oraz wspólne wysiłki obu państw dla rozwiązania konfliktu w Irlandii Północnej.
Praca zawiera też szczegółowy opis przebiegu procesu pokojowego w Irlandii Północnej oraz analizę skutków Porozumienia Wielkopiątkowego z 1998 r. Autor analizuje też potencjalne skutki Brexitu dla bezpieczeństwa regionu Wysp Brytyjskich.


Security of British Isles in the context of Peace Process in Northern Ireland.

The topic of this monograph is an influence of the peace process in Northern Ireland to security level of the British Isles region. It covers the genesis of British-Irish relations from the 16th century, the evolution of Ireland's position in British politics, the relations between Great Britain and Ireland in the postcolonial era, and the joint efforts of both countries to resolve the conflict in Northern Ireland.
The work also contains a detailed description of the peace process in Northern Ireland and an analysis of the effects of the Good Friday Agreement. The author also analyzes the potential effects of Brexit on the security of the British Isles region.

This article was the first in a series written about Protestant decline in County Cork, and particularly, West Cork based on the release of the 1911 census online which showed the complex nature of the Protestant population in Cork. The article showed that in Cork more than half of the decline was related to the British military industrial complex in Cork. Inevitably, this was relevant to the 'Dunmanway' controversy in Irish history and recent separate research by Dr. Andy Bielenberg and Professor David Fitzpatrick which confirms the analysis contained here.

These structuralist and behaviourist attitudes displayed by the P-CROs (Peace -Conflict Resolution Organizations) 1 studied, paralleled the wider academic debate surrounding the dynamics of the Northern Ireland conflict and possible approaches to managing or resolving it. These are those who argue, on the one hand, that the rival ideologies of Irish nationalism and Ulster 2 unionism can be transcended through behaviourist mechanisms such as greater contact, communication, dialogue, and new modes of thinking. Others take the structural perspective that these rival ideologies are separate and antithetical identities which cannot be integrated but must be recognized and accommodated through political mechanisms such as consociationalism. This debate is ongoing within the academic community, and is reflected by several contributions within this volume. 3

Throughout the 19th century, a series of British legal and economic restrictions of Irish fishing practices were enacted with the intent to replace indigenous vernacular boats with vessels that conformed more closely to British aesthetic and logistic sensibilities. Unlike vessel types found over broad geographic regions, commercially produced to standard plans and dimensions, vernacular boats built through folk traditions are often symbolic of community identities and their histories. An examination of boatbuilding traditions against a backdrop of historic photographs, oral histories, and British archives leads to the interpretation of Irish boats on Achill Island as expressions of unity and tools of resistance in the face of colonialist legislation.

An unprecedented gathering of the correspondence of one of the great writers of twentieth century, the Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien presents an intimate look into the life and thought of Brian O’Nolan, a prolific author of novels, stories, sketches, and journalism who famously wrote and presented works to the reading public under a variety of pseudonyms. Spanning the years 1934 to 1966, these compulsively readable letters show us O’Nolan, or O’Brien, or Myles Na gCopaleen, at his most cantankerous and most intimate.

The The Morality of the Mini Skirt A survey of attitudes and discussions of the miniskirt in Ireland 1963-1970 All rights reserved Isabelle Duff 2017 For many historians hailing from a generation of second wave feminism, the study of fashion is considered trite and is often dismissed. However, fashion provides us with a scope for study in all aspects of women's lives. It is clear from the oral history work undertaken by Catriona Clear and through the contemporary press that clothing and appearance were of significant importance to the majority of women. 1 In order to gain a full and balanced view of Irish society in the 1960s it would be wrong to eliminate studies on women's appearance. It is possible to gain a perspective on the matters of most importance to women from the problem pages of magazines, it also indicates how people spent their money and what people wore to an event gives an indication of the importance of the event to the attendee. Clear correctly asserts that the neglect of study in women's appearance in the past is a serious neglect among historians of the study of women's culture. 2 Furthermore, the standards of women's dress and debates on the issue also give an indication of concerns of morality in the period discussed. This will be addressed through a study of the miniskirt , easily the most controversial trend of the decade. This essay will attempt to prove that the debate over miniskirts encompassed a debate on the changing role of women in Irish society and the standards Irish women were expected to aspire to. Many of the discussions of the miniskirt challenged established beliefs on female sexuality and the standards of domesticity placed on Irish wives and mothers, especially in regard to young women. Evidence for this argument is primarily sourced from the national and regional press but is reinforced by academic articles and media contemporary to the period. Young women were recognised as a growing and important consumer base, advertisements changed to accommodate this new target market. Fashion occupied a highly gendered space. Even. Clear argues that fashion was of considerable significance to the interviewees as many discussed fashion with enthusiasm without any prompt. 2 Ibid.

Historians in southern Ireland, who examine the interaction of religion with social and political policy, tend to fixate on the Roman Catholic Church. Southern Protestants plus their socio-economic, political and religious interactions within wider society are often ignored. Though over 90% of southerners were, for a long period, Roman Catholic, were other denominations as irrelevant as this absence of consideration appears to suggest?

I look here at a much relied upon, pioneering and, generally, highly astute account, J.H. Whyte’s Church & State in Modern Ireland, 1923-1970 (1971). Whyte interviewed ten clergymen including five bishops, all Roman Catholic, in a book devoted to that church’s role in independent Ireland.  These geographical and denominational limitations produced avoidable interpretive weaknesses.

Take Article 44 of the 1937 Constitution, on religion. Article 44.1.2 recognised the ‘special position of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church as the guardian of the faith professed by the great majority of citizens’. It recognised also, in 44.1.3, the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches, the Religious Society of Friends, Jewish congregations and ‘other religious denominations existing’ at that time.

The affirmation of a ‘special position’ represented, said Whyte, ‘One more instance of the movement … to enshrine Catholic principles in the law of the land’. It marked, ‘the culmination of [a] process’ in which ‘the Irish state appeared wholly committed to the maintenance of Catholic values’.

Whyte ignored published evidence from the Church of Ireland that should have qualified his observations. Due to unavailability of archival records, the extent of consultation with the Roman Catholic Church in framing Article 44 was unclear in 1971.  Evidence of consultation with the Church of Ireland was available

The Betting Act 1926 legalised cash betting in Ireland and led to the appearance, for the first time, of the legally regulated and licenced betting office. The introduction of this legislation was a pragmatic step, designed to eradicate the undesirable

This dissertation addresses the significance of Brexit for unionist political identity in Northern Ireland.  It builds upon a constructivist approach to identity and applies the theory of ontological security (OST) to unionist political identity. It examines the manner in which the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) framed issues relating to the European Union and Brexit.  It then explores the link between party views on Brexit and the unionist aim of protecting Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom, before discussing the effects of Brexit on contemporary unionist political identity.  The research finds that Brexit has so far led to events which threaten unionist identity and that political unionism now finds itself under increasing pressure to adapt in order to secure Northern Ireland’s position within the Union.

INTRODUCTION

OPPONENTS of the Northern Ireland government accuse it of operating a police state. The Ulster Unionists, who have held control for nearly half a century, make automatic denial each time this charge is urged.

Undocumented allegations and blanket disclaimers do not help towards fair assessment. For seven months we have examined what happened during a Civil Rights march from Belfast to Derry. We have also looked to the aftermath of this demonstration, its consequences, and action taken by the authorities.

We are not primarily interested in reciting what happened to students and other young people who set out on the road, hoping to break through barriers of religious bigotry by directing attention to social and economic issues. We have tried to produce a study of Northern Ireland government in action. During their march the walkers learned much of police behaviour and political attitudes through a series of sharp object lessons. We have tried to establish facts, identify participants, and assess the parts they played.

The Northern Ireland unit was created in 1920 to appease the fears of a substantial Protestant majority faced with the prospect of inclusion in a Catholic-dominated, all-Ireland state. The Belfast Parliament was given control of matters of local importance, though the British Parliament retained wide powers to intervene. These have not been exercised.

From the outset, political attitudes in the new unit were wedded to religious persuasion. Critics argue that this has been disastrous for most of the people. It benefits only the ruling caste within the Ulster Unionist Party. This body is assured of continued power by the adherence of the majority of all classes of Protestants. As this power relies upon the enduring nature of old fanaticisms, official antipathy, previously reserved for those who were opposed to the existence of the Northern Ireland state, now extends to those who campaign against the religious divide.

We offer no exhaustive assessment of how the Unionist Party has governed during 50 years of near-absolute power, but seek to tell what we have discovered about the rule of law in Northern Ireland. The incidents described raise important questions about police and governmental partiality, and about the use of mobs to implement official policy. Our description should allow each reader to decide whether the appellation police state" should be applied to this area, and will permit him to assess how well the government has adhered to the principles underlying one of the most potent and cherished Unionist catch-cries: "For civil and religious liberty".

Bowes Egan & Vincent McCormack, London, August 1969.

In 1964, BOWES EGAN, with a group of others from Queen's University, Belfast. established a committee to investigate abuse of power by central and local government authorities in Northern Ireland. Since then he has been closely concerned with the Civi l Rights movement. He is a lecturer in law at the City of London College, author of a number of books, and has been contributor to The Times, the Sunday Times, and other national newspapers and specialist journals.
VINCENT McCORMACK is a writer and trainee psychologist at the Department of Psychology of Queen's University. During the last few months he has carried out an exhaustive investigation into the Burntollet incidents.

This PhD thesis examines strategies of resistance employed by IRA prisoners in opposition to criminalization processes in the post 1981 H-Blocks of Long Kesh.  It examines the nature and extent of state criminalization processes in the north of Ireland from the early to mid 1970s, and explores the perspective that its logic and intent persisted well beyond the post 1981 period.  It further considers the manner in which IRA prisoners reassessed the nature of their opposition to criminalization processes in the aftermath of the 1981 hunger strike.

The thesis looks at the environment of the post 1981 H-Blocks in some detail with a view to discussing the determining factors behind changes to the prison regime in the 1981 – 2000 period.  It further examines the precise strategies of resistance employed by IRA prisoners, looking at the nature of their organisation and structure, the emphasis placed on political education, the manner in which they organised political campaigns, and the development of escapes.  The discussion that emerges from this examination contributes to a clearer understanding of the nature and extent of IRA resistance strategies in the post 1981 H-Blocks, and highlights the contradictions that emerge between the existing academic and official literature in respect of this period, and the explanation offered by IRA prisoners themselves.

The thesis was accepted in May 2011

The EMBERS of REVISIONISM
Essays critiquing creationist Irish history and Roy Foster on Ken Loachʼs The WIND that SHAKES the BARLEY

Niall Meehan & Brian P Murphy

Contents

THE EMBERS OF REVISIONISM Critiquing Creationist Irish History - Dr. Niall Meehan
Introduction – enter Conor Cruise O’Brien
PART I MAKING SPACE FOR REVISIONISM
PART II THE SOUTH
2.1 ‘Catholic Bourgeoisie’
2.2 Southern Economy
2.3 ‘Wonderful Catholics’, ‘Good Little Protestants’
PART III REVISIONISM AND THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE
3.1 Deceived Schoolboys
3.2 Journalists and History
3.3 Left, Right
3.4 Reporting History
3.5 Tales of the RIC
3.6 Academic Tales
3.7 Protestant Views
3.8 Adulterers and Homosexuals
3.9 Kilmichael Interviews
3.10 April Killings
3.11 Ethnic Cleansing Retreat
PART IV CONCLUSION

The WIND that SHAKES the BARLEY
Historical reflections on Roy Foster’s criticism of Ken Loach’s 2006 film
Dr. Brian P. Murphy osb
INTRODUCTION
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE FILM
THE CROWN FORCES
DEMOCRATIC MANDATE AND REFERENCE TO IRAQ
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
SECTARIANISM
SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE WRITING OF IRISH HISTORY

Southern Star letters on the West Cork History Festival

Niall Meehan essay begins:

Introduction – enter Conor Cruise O'Brien
Historians who search for enhanced knowledge of past events never do so in a vacuum. Inevitably, societal pressures infiltrate the historian’s thought processes. When the subject matter of history comes closer to the present, politics intervenes. This is especially so in Ireland where the past is never past, but instead is considered the political present in retrospect.

Attempts to control the presentation of Irish history redoubled after 1970. This was due to official apprehension that nationalists and republicans in revolt against sectarian rule in Northern Ireland might influence southern popular consciousness. The consequent attempt to revise and to reverse a nationalist version of Irish history, so as to alienate southerners from northerners, was actively pursued by Conor Cruise O’Brien. He operated prominently in four areas of Irish life: government, politics, academic history and journalism. Their interaction was central to the relative success within academia of the revisionist project.

In revising Irish history O’Brien revised also his 1960s self. Before tacking to the right during the 1970s, he contributed three important articles to London’s New Left Review (NLR). They contained observations and sentiments he would later either ignore or disavow.

The first in 1965 challenged Cold War neo-colonialism, a subject of which O’Brien had direct personal experience. In 1961 he was forced out of his UN role in the province of Katanga in the newly independent, former Belgian, Congo. He had opposed the violent attempts of Western interests and white-ruled Rhodesia to partition off and turn Katanga into a client state. O’Brien wrote in the Observer on 10 December that year, ‘My resignation from the United Nations and from the Irish Foreign Service is a result of British Government policy’.

In exile from Ireland from 1962-68, O’Brien was associated with the ‘new left’. He opposed United States involvement in the Vietnam War, racism plus police violence in the US and Apartheid in South Africa. A 1967 NLR essay explained O’Brien’s role in exposing how the CIA funded and manipulated Encounter magazine (through the Congress of Cultural Freedom). O’Brien recounted also Encounter’s failed attempt to silence him. Another 1967 essay warned that ‘counter revolutionary subordination’ of intellectuals by the state in western society was a threat to ‘scholarly integrity’.

O’Brien was a committed supporter of resistance to US forces in Vietnam. Some years earlier he had supported the Algerian fight for independence from France. At a 1967 symposium on the Vietnam War O’Brien clashed with Hannah Arendt, who had remarked, ‘As to the Viet Cong terror, we cannot possibly agree with it’. O’Brien responded,

'I think there is a distinction between the use of terror by oppressed peoples against the oppressors and their servants, in comparison with the use of terror by their oppressors in the interests of further oppression. I think there is a qualitative distinction there which we have the right to make.'

In December 1967 O’Brien was front-page news in the Irish Times, that reported his arrest while demonstrating against the war, and being kicked by a policeman. In May 1968 O’Brien condemned police attacks on, and harassment of, the militant, armed, Black Panther Party.

O’Brien linked his Irish and international perspect-ives in his second NLR contribution, ‘The Embers of Easter’, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising against British rule. It was a robust anti-imperialist inter-pretation of Irish history. O’Brien had a connection there too. His uncle, the pacifist Francis Sheehy Skeffington, was executed during the Rising on the orders of a later found ‘guilty but insane’ Cork-born, Anglo-Irish British officer, Captain J.C. Bowen-Colthurst.

To great fanfare, in December 1968 O’Brien joined the small but then vibrantly and newly left-wing Irish Labour Party. Under a soon to be abandoned slogan, ‘The 70s will be socialist’, he was easily elected to the Dáil (Irish Parliament) at the June 1969 general election. O’Brien’s triumphant return to Ireland coincided with the emergence of civil rights demands that became a civil rights revolt in Northern Ireland. He was quickly in the thick of opposition to the North’s ‘Orange state’ .... [the rest in PDF]

"An analysis and critique of the controversy and debate surrounding the publication in 1998 of a history of the War of Independence in West Cork. The allegation that sectarianism was a feature of Irish republican ideology and action during the period 1920-22 is examined in the context of claims made in Peter Hart's 'The IRA and its Enemies' (OUP 1998). Niall Meehan's essay examines problematic anonymous interviews. By comparing Peter Hart's 1993 PhD thesis 'The Irish Republican Army and its Enemies' (TCD 1993) with Hart's 1998 book 'The IRA and its Enemies', some anonymous interviewees cited by Hart may be identified.

Problems arising out of this identification are discussed, for example whether two IRA veterans of the the November 1920 Kilmichael ambush were alive when Hart claimed to have interviewed them anonymously. The cover of 'Troubled History' features the 18 November 1989 'Southern Star' coverage of the death of Ned Young, the last Kilmichael veteran to die. Hart's thesis and book claim an interview with an anonymous Kilmichael veteran one day later.

On the chapter, 'Taking it out on the Protestants', questions are posed with regard to information in the thesis that is withdrawn from the book. For instance a possible perpetrator of the 'April killings', April 26-29 1922 near Dunmanway West Cork, is named in the thesis, but excised from the book. Other significant changes are noted, also.

The essay is part of a projected larger study, examining the effect of the Troubles post 1968 in Northern Ireland intruding on the history of the War of Independence between 1919-21. In addition, the ramifications of censorship perfected by Conor Cruise O'Brien in the 1970s in southern Ireland will be examined in this wider context.

[See also, under 'papers':

Distorting Irish History [One], the stubborn facts of Kilmichael: Peter Hart and Irish Historiography, Nov 2010

Distorting Irish History Two, the road from Dunmanway: Peter Hart’s treatment of the 1922 ‘April killings’ in West Cork, May 2011]

[Download PDF below]"

As the dominant intellectual figure in the early Irish protestant church, James Ussher played a key role in defining its sense of identity in Ireland.  He created an 'origin myth' for the Church of Ireland,, giving it historical legitimacy by tracing its origins back to St Patrick, and his apocalyptic view of the Pope as Antichrist shaped Irish protestant anti-Catholicism for centuries to come.

"I reviewed an edited collection, Terror in Ireland, 1916-23 (Lilliput, 2012) for Reviews in History (published 16 August 2012); available, with responses, here (https://www.academia.edu/1871818/, plus at http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1303). The book was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Hart who died in 2010. Hart had been a member of the Trinity History Workshop, under whose auspices the book was conceived and published.

My review highlighted several key failures of the edited collection. The Editor Professor David Fitzpatrick and Dr Eve Morrison responded to my review. I think it would be of value to continue the discussion, not least since debate may clarify the wider issues surrounding approaches to and controversies in modern Irish history. Reviews in History does not permit continued discussion beyond review and response. Hence its publication on Spinwatch.

I also include here a section omitted from the original review, concerning Brian Hanley's discussion of a 1985 Sinn Fen pamphlet called The Good Old IRA, and also further discussion this point on CedarLounge.wordpress.com.

See also:

Why Spinwatch is Publishing John Young’s Statement:
http://www.spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/52-northern-ireland/5516-why-spinwatch-is-publishing-john-youngs-statement

Review of Terror in Ireland, 1916-1923 and responses (16 Aug 2012):
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/1877653"

and (also reproduced here)
The 1985 Sinn Fein Good Old IRA pamphlet and historical revisionism – a response to comments:
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/the-1985-sinn-fein-good-old-ira-pamphlet-and-historical-revisionism-a-response-to-comments/
Which links to (main text in PDF): http://cedarlounge.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/1985-sf-pamphlet-b-cedar-lounge-discussion.pdf""

A definitive study of the remembrance of the popular Irish ballad ‘Roddy McCorley’ illustrates the dynamics of social forgetting of the 1798 rebellion in Ulster, which oscillate between decommemorating and re-commemorating. The discussion demonstrates the challenges in the historical research of folk songs and reveals the value of utilising antiquarian scholarship for a history of “hidden” popular culture. 

This article examines mythical musings and scholarly arguments over whether Buddhism had entered ancient Ireland. Romantic-era antiquarians proposed that Buddhist missionaries transmitted the dharma to the "Western Isles"; Yeats and Joyce incorporated traces of Buddhist dispersion into their Irish responses. Archaeologists debated evidence from the Gundestrup cauldron which kindled the imagination of a few New Age pioneers. Later last century, countercultural dispersion of Buddhism settled into communal experiments creolising Tibetan approaches to dharma with Celtic influences. The blend of Buddhist spirituality and Celtic aesthetics further enriches Michel Houllebecq's The Elementary Particles as its protagonist taps into these cross-cultural energies.

In 2017 Robin Bury's Buried Lives directly criticised previous scholarship by Professor David Fitzpatrick on Protestant decline in Ireland during the revolutionary period between 1911 and 1926. This paper examines the accuracy of Bury's criticism and presents new evidence which shows that trends identified by Bury were in place long before the revolution. If that is the case then Bury's argument that 40,000 native Irish Protestants left Ireland through 'involuntary' migration between 1920-1923 is likely to be wrong.