In 1920, as again in 1970, the British constitution shattered in Ireland, where servants of the Crown resorted to extra-legal means –torture, reprisal, murder to restore order. It is only by understanding those contexts that we begin to make sense…

The casting of John Redmond in the role of scapegoat was not without functional advantage in Irish politics. That partition could in some degree be treated as a fait accompli for which responsibility rested with the Irish party in a…

“The barons of the media, with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators. They are untouchable. They laugh at the law; they sneer at Parliament. They have the power to hurt us,…

He was able to make the 1860 Adulteration of Food Act work to stem the addition of red lead, strychnine, sand, plaster of Paris and mercury to basic diets, to prevent narcotics and hallucinogenics being added to popular drinks, and…

Most Tans were young, unemployed, former enlisted men in the wartime military, and products of England’s urban working class. Victims of a spiralling unemployment crisis, they were attracted to Ireland by promises of upward mobility, steady work, good pay, and…

In the early 1960s Charlotte zealously embraces her role as literary reviewer, criticising what she terms “negative” and “defeatist” books. One particular text is rejected because it does not help to “promote belief in the progress of humanity and the…

Continental European reaction was relatively low key, though in some cases attributing Mr Haughey’s motives to bitterness in Anglo-Irish relations. The Irish Press chorused support, the Irish Independent grumbled and Mr Gageby’s editorials in The Irish Times were unsurprisingly laudatory….

One can say that Gorbachev was not up to the task before him, if only because he did not fully understand it. But, it has to be added, nobody else did either. The Soviet Union had become a sclerotic case…

The heroes of these books are anguished men who nurse large grievances, battle grasping wives and dominating fathers, and are out of sync with the rah-rah optimism of the times. They make their way through an America at the zenith…

Pinker believes that the growth of empathy has much to do with increasing literacy – reading profoundly deepens the understanding of the perspective of others – and attributes to this the “humanitarian revolution” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which…

Ironically, in a referendum the people rejected a recently proposed reform – the so-called “Abbeylara” amendment which would have enhanced the power of the Oireachtas relative to government. A recent study of the reasons why people voted as they did…

In spite of his bitterness, Dedalus nevertheless betrays a lingering fascination with Catholic vocabulary and concepts, as is pointed out by an acquaintance later in the novel: “It is a curious thing, do you know,” Cranley said dispassionately, “how your…