Imagine this. It’s 1941 and despite the fact the world is plunged into the bloodiest conflict of mankind, tens of thousands of Irish men and women stream into the UK. The war economy is booming, and work is plentiful, despite the restrictions and dangers of working there. A young Irish […]
History & Politics
Ireland has reinvented itself in the twenty first century. It has emerged from the shadows and secrets of the 1900s. We have dismantled draconian laws against gay people. We have allowed literature and the arts to flourish when censorship forced some of our greatest writers to flee our shores like […]
As we tumble towards a second wave of Covid-19 and everyone in the country looks to blame the government, I am always struck by one thing: The failure to look at ourselves as a jigsaw piece in the blame game. Only last month I wrote about our role in choosing […]
One of the earliest ‘Scandals’ in Ireland in the 1920s centred around a demand by the then Minister of Finance, Ernest Blythe. He pursued other government minsters to reimburse the government the paltry sum of four pounds, nine shillings and 6d. The politicians in question were forced to use public […]
One of the greatest historical lessons I learnt as a student was from a simple cartoon. The title was: ‘History is a matter of perspective’. In the cartoon, a Native American had returned to shore to his tribal chief. Lingering in the background were the three caravels of the Columbus […]
From the reputed invention of the bicycle in 1817 by the German Baron, Karl Von Drais to West Cork’s most famous cyclist Michael Collins to this year’s Clonakilty Bike Festival going online due to Covid-19, Kieran Doyle takes us on a very interesting journey through the history of the bicycle. […]
