The centenary of the execution of Republican prisoners by the Free State government is to be marked with commemorative events around the country in November and December. The Free State government introduced Emergency Powers legislation which gave its Army authority to court-martial prisoners and sentence them to death for a range of offences including possession of weapons. That law of October 1922 was accompanied by a trenchant anti-IRA pastoral letter from the Catholic bishops. Free article

'Dogs out on Curragh after escape' was the lead headline on The Cork Examiner the day after an audacious jail break by seven republican POWs on Sunday 29 October 1972. The escape coincided with the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis which was taking place in Liberty Hall, Dublin the same day. Free article

Camden resident, writer, socialist, and Irish Republican, Pegeen O’Sullivan died in July this year aged 96 years old. Angie Birthill writes on Pegeen’s lifelong community activism. Free article

THE YEAR 1982 saw British Government strategy in Ireland in disarray. The Hunger Strike of the previous year, in which ten republican prisoners died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, had broken the British policy of criminalising the prisoners and, by extension, the struggle for Irish freedom. The world saw that Irish republicans had widespread community support among the nationalist population in the Six Counties. Free article

Writing in his latest blog, Declan Kearney looks at the need to plan for Ireland's future. Free article

By mid-September 1922 the Republican forces were on the retreat throughout Ireland and were reverting to rural guerrilla tactics while the Free State controlled the cities and towns. Free article

Legacy, victims and dealing with the past has been a defining political issue from the Good Friday Agreement (1998).  However, it wasn’t until the negotiations at Stormont House (2014) that a comprehensive approach, and architecture, was broadly agreed to deal with the legacy of the past.

The Stormont House Agreement (2014) provided the broad political architecture on devising key... Free article

The day after Michael Collins was shot, Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff of the Free State Army, sent a message to his soldiers. He urged them to “stand calmly by your posts” and said: “Let no cruel act of reprisal blemish your bright honour.” Yet in Dublin, within days of that message, and as the body of Michael Collins lay in state in City Hall, Free State forces carried out atrocities which up to recent times were largely forgotten. Free article

We are seeing a deluge of media coverage on the centenary of the death of Michael Collins. This is natural for such a towering figure in our history. It is unfortunate, though, that so much that is said and written about the Treaty and the Civil War is dominated by the figures of Collins and Dev, often to the exclusion of other key figures and usually glossing over the political issues involved. Free article

As we mark the 42nd anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strikes Pauline Tully remembers republican Kevin O'Reilly who died in December, and who over six decades was a key activist and organiser, and was to the forefront of H-Block campaign in Cavan. Free article