State Papers: Secrets of the powers that be Republican legend lingered on despite firm denial by the Vatican in 1933 That Pope Benedict XV, in a private interview with Count George Plunkett in the middle of April 1916, imparted his Apostolic Blessing to the men and arms of the Irish Republic two weeks before…
State Papers: Echoes of the past from the archives On the 26 July 1975, Msgr Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás, Marquis of Peralta, the founder of Opus Dei, died in Rome. At once there began a movement to have his unique holiness recognised, and the desire to see him canonised was expressed by…
State Papers: Secrets of the powers that be The very real fear that the government, or at least the Taoiseach, Mr de Valera, felt in the summer of 1940 is a fact unintentionally revealed by some of the files. The trail through documents began with a query from Prof. R. Dudley Edwards in UCD…
State Papers: Secrets of the powers that be The war in Europe came to an end on May 7, 1945, but Europe remained (and perhaps remains) haunted by the consequences. In the current harvest of files a couple relate to aspects, not so much of the immediate aftermath, but of later years. Two episode…
State Papers: Echoes of the past from the archives To lose one of Ireland’s leaders, albeit, in symbolic form is an odd thing to do. But Dáil Éireann managed it. On June 22, 1987 Tom Ryan RHA, then the distinguished president of that academy, rang the Taoiseach’s department in Mr Hughes’s second term as…
State Papers: Echoes of the past from the archives The value of these annual releases is not always to understand the immediate past, as so many journalists seem to think, but to cast light on obscure matters over the last two centuries. People abroad often write directly to the government seeking information, often about…
State Papers: Secrets of the powers that be These days the poet Patrick Kavanagh is seen by some as something close to a saint, certainly a man of sensitive expression and deep spirituality. But this was not the opinion in 1938 of Dublin booksellers or the gardaí in College Green barracks, as a police…
State Papers: Secrets of the powers that be Cultural goods from colonised countries whether secular or sacred, are becoming of increasing concern to colonising nations like Ireland (albeit as a part of the United Kingdom). The National Museum, for instance, has rich collections of African, Asian and American artefacts of all kinds, which are…
State Papers: Echoes of the past from the archives Controversy over the Irish National Anthem is a continuing matter. It was certainly so in the late 1980s To some, ‘The Soldier’s Song’ seemed inappropriate for today. A nun from Bessbrook wrote to the Taoiseach that she had attended an event at which the audience…
State Papers: Echoes of the past from the archives Many people have wondered over the years about the ‘promise to pay’ of the Irish Republic in the 19th Century and early 20th Century. Great sums of money were collected but never really accounted for. Mystery surrounds these funds. One of the files deals with…