Saint Patrick

Losing Saint Patrick to Find Ourselves…

Soapbox on March 16, 2023, 7:00 am | Readers 3292

Keith Williamson is a History and Politics teacher in County Down Saint Patrick has (possibly) been subjected to more makeovers than any other historical figure born within these islands. For fifteen centuries he has been refashioned by monks, kings, archbishops, politicians and expats. The endless rebranding is, however, hugely interesting in terms of Ireland’s evolving storyboard. In truth, all we know for certain about Patrick is what he revealed in his own writings. Hagiographers and propagandists, who wrote centuries later, …

Shared Origins

Of This Island on April 22, 2012, 4:26 pm | Readers 211

At least two centuries before the great boulders of Stonehenge were placed on a windswept Salisbury Plain, and over 500 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza rose from the deserts of Egypt, Neolithic architects in the Boyne Valley (Brú na Bóinne) were laying the foundations of one of the most studied structures of the ancient world. An imposing earthen mound in County Meath (an Mhí), its original name has been lost to the jealous mists of history. But the …

London Letter: A new flag for Northern Ireland?

Catherine Wylie on December 16, 2010, 10:35 am | Readers 279

A Tory MP said yesterday that Northern Ireland should have its own recognised flag, but is it realistic to think that the people of Northern Ireland could ever become united under one flag, symbol and nation? The MP in question, Andrew Rosindell, dressed his dog, Spike, in a union flag waistcoat whilst campaigning during the 1997 election, and is known for being in favour of firearm ownership, the death penalty and the detention of asylum seekers. “Northern Ireland is the …