Northern Ireland

The anti-Russian poetry of Frances Browne, the ‘Blind Poetess of Ulster’.

Why am I a historian of Irish politics? I grew up in 1970s Belfast, where contested versions of history were literally written on the walls.

In December 1922 a proclamation signed by George V formally established the Irish Free State. Among loyalists in three border counties of Ulster, partitioned and cut adrift from unionist jurisdiction, the sense of betrayal was acute.

Four historians consider whether the traditional Whig history of Britain, as one of evolutionary political progress, has ever been challenged by events. 

In March 1914, writes Robert Blake, it seemed that Ulster might have to he coerced into accepting the Irish Home Rule Bill. A crisis was provoked when a number of British Army officers resolved to he dismissed rather than obey the Government's orders.

A proto-mutiny took place in Ireland on March 20th, 1914.

John Stocks Powell describes how conflict between Nationalists and Unionists was still unhealed when the First World War began.

Chris Darnell examines the political and military background to the IRA’s last major action against the British army.

Ian Garrett asks why British Governments found Ireland so difficult a problem in the 19th and 20th Centuries.