Conor Kostick’s new novel, The Retreat, is a thrilling tale set in the Middle Ages during the crusades. It is narrated by Guibert of Rocadamour, a naïve aristocratic youth, who joins a crusade expedition having soaked up the propaganda of the chansons and the chronicles. He is swiftly disabused of his illusions when the expedition is derailed at the outset, with the would-be crusaders sacking the castle of Devinium and stealing […]
The Connaught Rangers’ Mutiny of 1920
One of the most extraordinary acts of defiance against the British Empire took place in India on 28 June 1920 when four Irish soldiers, members of the British army, thousands of miles from home, decided to protest against the suppression of the independence movement in Ireland. The soldiers belonged to the Connaught Rangers and were […]
Review: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Speaking in the extended aftermath of the so-called Indian Removal Act of 1830, Andrew Jackson, the slave-owning US president famed for his previous (and merciless) warfare against Creek and Seminole tribes in the American South, laid out the case for indigenous extermination. ‘They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire […]
Coronavirus in Ireland: challenging misinformation and offering solutions
The spread of a new coronavirus – 2019-nCoV – has to be of concern to everyone. Efforts to keep the virus out of Ireland have failed and any attempt to shrug off the dangers posed by the situation by saying, for example, that many more people will die of the flu this year, are seriously […]
Pro-Life Fianna Fáil Mayor of Dublin elected with the support of the Greens and Social Democrats
On 24 February 2020, Raheny Fianna Fáil councillor Tom Brabazon was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin at a special meeting of Dublin City Council. His victory came in a vote of 34 to 26 (three absences) against independent candidate Anthony Flynn. In 2015, Tom Brabazon let slip an extremely conservative view of women, when he […]