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From 1961 to 1965 Irish foreign policy embarked on new directions. Under Taoiseach Sean Lemass Ireland sought membership of the EEC, a process which stalled temporarily in 1963 when French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's application for EEC membership and Ireland's application, along with applications of Denmark and Norway, was halted a result. Away from Europe the first half of the 1960s saw Irish diplomats at the United Nations develop Ireland's position as an independent-minded m...

The British government has taken steps to halt the prosecution of soldiers responsible for the deaths of civilians in Northern Ireland, most of whom had no connection to paramilitary activities. These killings were part of a ruthless dirty war that commenced in 1970 when Brigadier Frank Kitson, a counter-insurgency specialist, was sent to Northern Ireland. Kitson had spent decades in Britain’s colonies refining old, and developing new, techniques which he applied in Northern Ireland. He became...

‘Milltown has much to tell us about Belfast’s chequered past, whatever our religion or politics. Our history is bigger than our tribe.’ Milltown Cemetery, the burying ground for the Catholic community in Belfast for almost 150 years, is one of Belfast’s most significant landmarks. Thousands of people come to the cemetery every year, some to reconnect with their family history, others drawn to the extraordinary stories of the people buried there. Mill workers, labourers, clergy, Italian immigr...

The fifth volume in this acclaimed paperback series covers a wide range of topics, including Celtic Cornwall, Cornish politics, the Cornish economy, Cornish genetics, constructions of language and race in contemporary Cornwall, Cornish rugby, and education in Cornwall.

When war broke out in 1939 over 20,000 Irishmen were serving in the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force with the greatest proportion in the Army. During the war this rose to over 120,000, suggesting that about 100,000 enlisted during the war. Nine earned the Victoria Cross; three members of the Royal Navy, including a Fleet Air Arm pilot, four soldiers, including a member of the Australian forces, and two RAF pilots. The author looks at the seven Irish regiments in campaigns across the globe,...

Many translations into English verse of Brian Merriman's celebrated eighteenth-century narrative poem Cuirt an Mhean Oiche (The Midnight Court) have been made by Irish poets over the past two centuries. All translators have tackled the problem of being Irish poets working in English and drawing upon the Irish-language tradition in various ways, as well as having to negotiate between Merriman's world and their own historical moments. This tension in translation is the major focus of The Midnight...

Sacred Sisters focuses on five saints: the four female Irish saints who have extant medieval biographies (Darerca, Brigid, Ite, and Samthann), and Patrick, whose writings -- fifth-century Ireland's sole surviving texts -- attest to the centrality of women in Irish Christianity's development. Women served as leaders and teachers, perhaps even as bishops and priests, and men and women worked together in a variety of arrangements as well as independently. Previous studies of gender in medieval Irel...

This book provides an analysis of neo-liberal political economics implemented in Ireland and the deleterious consequences of that model in terms of polarised social inequalities, impoverished public services and fiscal vulnerability as they appear in central social policy domains - health, housing and education in particular. Tracing the argument into the domains where the institutions are sustained and reproduced, this book examines the movement of modern economics away from its original concer...

Where Mountainy Men have Sown gives a first-hand account of the fight for freedom in West Cork from 1916-21. It chronicles the social and military aspects of the War of Independence and describes the IRA's activities in the area, from Macroom to as far west as Ballingeary and Coolea, and covering Inchigeelagh to Ballyvourney and the Derrynasaggart Mountains. Micheal O Suilleabhain joined the armed struggle for freedom in his local area of Kilnamartyra at the age of thirteen and describes attacks...

Sheridan's most successful play, often considered the apex of English comedy.