I read Modern History and Political Science in Dublin University from 1936 to 1940, talking my degree in absentia in January 1940. The most memorable lectures which I attended were those given by Curtis; he was always interesting and amusing, never the dry historian. Continue reading
But as books must and will be produced to meet the demand, it is now both timely and fair to ask what kind of ‘Irish history’ are we going to have? As a race, we have an extraordinary habit of make-believe. Continue reading
The names Moody and Edwards are jointly synonymous with the emergence of history as an organised academic discipline in Ireland in the late 1930s. Continue reading
Ireland and Australia face a number of similar economic and political issues, and among them, currently, is the problem of high inflation.. Continue reading
…his greatest contribution as an historian was as a communicator of modern historical research to the wider public…He was much loved across the UCC community for his wit, his outspokeness …and as the great proponent of the historic mission and proper modus operandi of the University as a community of scholars Continue reading
Dudley, as he was always called, was a formidable scholar, a towering and legendary figure. ..He combined flamboyance and eccentricity with scholarship and imagination. Thirty-five years after his death people still often talk about him. He was unique. Continue reading
James Francis Michael Lydon (1928‒2013) ‒ always ‘Jim’ to his friends ‒ was the most influential historian of later medieval Ireland of his time…His achievement was to revive the study of a neglected stretch of the Irish past both through his own writings and through the fascination and lasting commitment he inspired in those he taught. Continue reading
This is a story about one of the great-grandchildren of the ‘Earl Grey Irish Famine orphans’ Continue reading
Composing these words brings to mind a man who, in my experience, was always kind, cautious and considerate, and one who believed that by writing, teaching and example he could make his country a more reasonable, and therefore a more tolerant, society than it had been during his boyhood and early manhood years. Continue reading
Professor Beckett in the Quadrangle of Queen’s University Belfast c. 1975
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