“I’ll finish as I started”

7 June 2023
At a recent lecture on Ernie O’Malley by the historian and Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha, I was chatting with Belinda Nugent from the O’Malley/Russell Cumann and I mentioned that my Granda Michael Smyth knew Ernie O’Malley and was instrumental in his famous escape from Kilmainham Gaol in 1921 along with Simon Donnelly and Frank Teeling. Free article
Dublin remembers executed Republicans
23 November 2022

The execution of Erskine Childers 100 years ago on 24 November 1922 marked the culmination of the demonisation of this principled, committed and talented Republican activist by both the British and Free State governments. Free article
A time to manage and not deny change – real leadership is required
15 November 2022

Sinn Féin’s Declan Kearney has said now is a time to ‘manage and not deny change’ and said real leadership is required. Free article
Four lads from the Liberties
15 November 2022

The Free State regime carried out the first prison executions under their new coercive legislation when four young men from the Liberties in the south city faced the firing squad in Kilmainham Jail, Dublin, on 17 November 1922. They were Volunteers Peter Cassidy, James Fisher, John Gaffney and Richard Twohig of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade. Free article
Events to mark Centenary of Free State executions of Republicans
9 November 2022

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
Daring Curragh Camp prison breakout remembered 50 years on
24 October 2022

'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
‘She enthused and motivated us all’. Remembering Pegeen O’Sullivan
21 October 2022

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
Sinn Féin breakthrough in October ‘82
19 October 2022

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
The End of Partition: Planning for Ireland’s Future by Declan Kearney
29 September 2022

Writing in his latest blog, Declan Kearney looks at the need to plan for Ireland's future. Free article
Sligo’s Noble Six
17 September 2022

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
British government demonstrates no regard for victims and survivors with Legacy Bill
3 September 2022
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
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Contributions from key figures in the churches, academia and wider civic society as well as senior republican figures