The View Ireland is approaching the final phase of the decade of centenaries, commemorating events which led to a separate Irish state in parallel with the creation of Northern Ireland and partition and the fighting of a civil war over terms of the Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland. The decade of centenaries, which in…
The View A book that I treasure for many reasons is a Holy Bible given to me as a Christening present in 1947, and inscribed “to my godson Martin with affectionate greetings”. It is compact with a leather cover, and, despite being well thumbed, its 1,400 pages of thin but strong paper are very well preserved.…
The proud Derry man had to do Daniel O’Connell’s work all over again writes Dr Martin Mansergh For most people in Ireland, John Hume was the guide throughout the northern conflict who advocated the necessity of a peaceful political resolution. It was one that demanded a fundamental rebalancing of institutions to reflect the fact of…
The View The country’s most important and imposing statue, that of Daniel O’Connell, on the capital’s main thoroughfare, should be safe from attack (except by seagulls and pigeons), as he championed the anti-slavery cause. In 1845, he greeted the famous campaigner and at that point escaped slave Frederick Douglass, who was on a lecture tour…
The View Memories of people and travel, repeat performances and modern systems of communication with family, friends and colleagues all help to maintain sanity. While the airwaves are dominated by just one subject, we all need occupations that can absorb our attention and lift our mind onto other things. The museum of the Vienna…
The View For many years past, there have been warnings of the danger of a pandemic, which mostly went unheeded. Now it is upon us. We were quickly reminded of the great influenza epidemic of 1918-19, which carried off millions of people, young adults in particular. Throughout history, and to this day in many…
The View They do things differently in Russia. According to newspaper reports (Le Monde, March 4), President Vladimir Putin intends to introduce a reference to God into the Russian Constitution, similar to the preamble to Bunreacht na hÉireann. It will invoke ‘the memory of our ancestors who have transmitted to us ideals and faith…
The View One mercy of the General Election is that it diminished attention to the actual moment of Brexit on January 31. Brexit was not an election issue, given all-party agreement and support, but history will give credit, absent from the ballot box, to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon…
Tribute to a statesman Perhaps his greatest achievements were reforms around policing and justice, writes Martin Mansergh Seamus Mallon played an indispensable role in the SDLP as deputy leader of that party, of which he was part of the bedrock in deeply dangerous times. In later years, he received a great deal of…
The View We enter the first month of the year with a number of uncertainties settled, at least for now. Brexit is happening at the end of the month, with doubt now centred on the short deadline of less than a year for negotiating a trade deal. The arrangements for maintaining the status quo on…