history – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

If Ireland north and south can commemorate the First World War together, so should the Germans alongside the wartime Allies

Brian Walker on June 12, 2013, 11:03 am

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A piece in the Indy by Matthew Norman on the UK’s plans to commemorate World War 1 has to be read quite carefully to register the satire against the (English) Culture secretary’s smiley moral equivalence approach to the vexed issue of war guilt. Were the Germans the clear aggressors or “were we all to blame?” The subject will never die. In his magisterial “The Sleepwalkers,” written last year the Cambridge historian Christopher Clarke makes the case for shared guilt after an …

It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic

Brian Walker on May 8, 2013, 9:51 pm

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From the Dalai Lama to a “ VVIP” at the weekend, Londonderry is proving quite a venue, one of three for commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic this weekend. Good to see the UK City of Culture grafting this on to the programme and the recognition given to its role as a major port for the destroyer escorts of the convoys in and out of Liverpool and the Clyde. I recommend the absorbing selection of memoir writing on Derry in …

Decade of remembrance, reconciliation or renewal?

Mick Fealty on April 2, 2013, 2:33 pm

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Here’s something we’ve been poor at talking about so far. Last year was the first of a decade of significant centenaries in Irish history. The first of them, the signing of the Convenant actually passed without a great deal of comment, or any serious revisiting of its meaning in contemporary society. On on level the dearth of public comment and/or debate might be seen as a good thing. But in fact treating these momentous events as so many notches on …

Lessons from the Balkans: Tactical, strategic, psychological and spontaneous uses of extreme violence.

Mick Fealty on March 18, 2013, 3:42 pm

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Stunningly good conversation on Start the Week this morning on BBC Radio 4. You can catch the whole lot here, but the clip above begins with this penetrating opening statement from the Balkan writer Aleksandar Hemon: What happened in Bosnia, people always try to explain it as thousands of years of hatred: which of course is lazy, easy and inaccurate. I always thought that the extreme violence in Bosnian and particularly around Sarajevo was directly proportional to strength of the …

Ulster Presbyterians and the endurance of principle…

Mick Fealty on March 11, 2013, 11:12 am

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If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. Numbers 30:2 If you didn’t see Will Crawley’s evocative first spisode in a new three parter on the much spoken about, and little understood Ulster Presbyterians, you really should bookmark the page on iPlayer and take the time to watch it. The …

DigitalLunch: History, Storytelling or Propaganda?

Mick Fealty on March 8, 2013, 2:51 pm

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Starting in five, we have a late lunch (to enable those in the US to join us, if they’re so inclined), we take another look at the past through the prism of history. I’m jointed by by Hiram Morgan of UCC From the Tudors who stand accused of being the first great propagandists of history, to the present day History remains a contentious arena for human ideas. Between purists who want to discover the truth about the past, and those …

Aftermath of a riot as it used to be done in Belfast…

Mick Fealty on February 22, 2013, 9:59 am

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The footage here is, I think, shot in the Beechmount area of west Belfast (I take correction on that) in 1988. No commentary, just raw footage. The presence of masked paramilitaries underlining the absence of security forces. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

The Sad State of North Belfast’s Riverside

Gerry Lynch on February 21, 2013, 3:15 pm

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A bright, cold, day earlier this week saw me head out for a constitutional along what is now rather a pleasant route along the banks of the Lagan past the Odyssey and up to the Titanic Museum. With the hazy afternoon sun making the East Belfast bank of the river look particularly pretty, and the tourist information signs informing me of the Belfast Maritime Trail, I changed my mind and instead turned left at the Lagan Weir and decided to …

Copernicus’ “Google Doodle” and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Gerry Lynch on February 19, 2013, 7:03 pm

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Sunday past was the 413th anniversary of the execution of Giordano Bruno (burned at the stake for heresies such as proposing that the Sun is a star and that the other stars in the sky are also Suns, probably accompanied by planets very much like ours). Today, more auspiciously, is the 460th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus. He managed to postulate that the solar system revolved around the Sun, rather than the Earth, while remaining a Chapter Canon …

Richard III, history and the pressing needs of a modern university…

Mick Fealty on February 5, 2013, 11:18 am

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I don’t know if you watched it, but C4 had a documentary on the uncovering of Richard III last night. R3, it seems, may have been more significant as a fictional character in Shakespeare than as an significant monarch in the history of the English state. A mere punctuation between prolonged civil war (as the natural condition of English public affairs) and the construction of a modern centralised state under Henry Tudor. Freakiest of all (isn’t that the trademark of …

Memories of 1982, a strange year

Brian Walker on December 31, 2012, 6:49 pm

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According to what’s appeared in the papers, the archives of 1982 have produced few surprises. Perhaps Wally Kirwan’s suggestion of cross border internment put (safely) to Garret FitzGerald comes close but it was never going to happen. The two governments had allowed themselves to be pushed apart by the 1981 hunger strike and a key initiative had been handed to the IRA and Sinn Fein for years. I missed an early chance of enlightenment. After snatching a TV interview with …

Are our versions of history sundering or reconciling us?

Brian Walker on December 13, 2012, 2:43 pm

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Martin Kettle in the Guardian pens a lament for the ignorance of the English about their own history. The outcome, he claims is a” loss of national self respect” and the threat of a disintegrating Union. For once, the term “English” is used deliberately. It’s a long time since AJP Taylor’s superb English History 1914 -1945 simply equated “ English” with “British,” and referred mischievously to “ the Scotch.” Could the opposite apply to us non-English , that overheated versions of …

[Amended] Happy Birthday News Letter (the oldest regular English language newspaper in the world)…

Mick Fealty on October 30, 2012, 10:41 am

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In about half an hour, there’s an unveiling of a plaque to one of the least remarked upon artefacts of Irish history: the founding of the News Letter 275 years ago Francis Joy. Ben lowry of the paper notes this morning: Early News Letters are among the most important historical documents in Britain or Ireland (50 years before The Times), although most of the first 13 years is missing. There is, though, a fascinating intact six month stretch in 1739 …

CAIN archive: “I presume that it is not contemplated that External Affairs might suggest”

Mick Fealty on October 25, 2012, 9:16 pm

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So, great news for pol and history anoraks… Cain have got hold of some fascinating fragments of history from the national archive in Dublin and put them online… You can browse it all from the home page here. And the way Cain have structured it you can dive in by year. The early stuff (mid 60s) is wonderfully laconic. I love the way too that senior civil servants address each other by their surnames. And the scribbled writing in the …

Essex, Bacon and the early treachery of (Irish) politicians…

Mick Fealty on October 19, 2012, 9:45 am

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I used Google Plus to interview an old friend from schooldays to talk about a series of lectures he’s holding next week in the Linen Hall Library on one of the least considered and probably most pivotal moments in the history of Ulster. Dr Hiram Morgan looks at that critical period that led under the Scots King James the Sixth (First of England) to the thorough plantation of Ulster. It coincides with the rise (and establishment) of a professional political …

How the Dutch have seen us

Patrick Corrigan on October 4, 2012, 7:43 pm

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There are some great images of local interest in this Netherlands photographic archive. They give a fascinating glimpse of how the Dutch have seen us down through the years. From the home of William III, we can see a September 1690 pamphlet account of his military campaign in Ireland, including the siege of Derry and the Battle of the Boyne, right through to a not-so-appreciative account of the men of Orange to be found in a newspaper cartoon at the height …

The Covenant had its day. A new one is needed

Brian Walker on September 29, 2012, 3:13 pm

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It’s salutary to see the scanty outside news coverage in advance of the Ulster Covenant anniversary focusing on a few hundred metres of territory around Carlisle Circus. The heritage of unionism seems reduced to rioting and bigotry. Many will agree, however unfairly. For the most part it’s about just another day of tricky parades management that provokes the uncomprehending, exasperated response from outsiders: “ But we thought that was all over.” I don’t myself accept all of Robin Wilson’s too- negative reading of the …

Has the Republic disposed of the malign legacy of Charles Haughey 30 years ago?

Brian Walker on September 29, 2012, 1:29 pm

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The spotlight should not fall exclusively on the history of the North these days. We’re told that the launch of a constitutional convention in the Republic is imminent. Doubts are rife that it will it do the job. Although sparked by the financial collapse, it must review the robustness of the Republic’s institutions from much further back, to the State’s birth in revolution and internal warfare and the “slightly constitutional” stance of the young Fianna Fail in the 1920s which continued to inspire the …

Londonderry born imperial policeman remembered

Brian Walker on September 10, 2012, 10:07 am

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Many thanks to my old colleague Kevin Connolly, BBC Middle East correspondent and a former Ireland correspondent for keeping his old antennae in good working order to discover the remarkable character of Londonderry born Sir Charles Tegart, commissioner of police in colonial India and Palestine. As Kevin says, they don’t make them like that any more. I don’t know the name – I wonder if anyone out there does? Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor …

What was the Ulster Covenant about?

Brian Walker on September 10, 2012, 9:23 am

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What was the Ulster Covenant whose centenary is being commemorated on “Ulster Day” 29 September really about? 400,000 signed the Solemn League and Covenant and the Women’s Declaration in a vast demonstration of public opinion that still impresses today. The production of the largest Union Jack is history, 48’x25’was an example of PR sureness of touch that Unionism was never to equal although often tried to emulate. Nobody was killed. But how strong was the threat of force implicit in the …