How can Ireland survive the seismic changes of the past three decades?
Historians in Ireland occupy a public role – unlike in Britain, where those with an inclination towards the commentariat usually…
Seamus Heaney’s letters confirm that he really was as nice as he seemed
Seamus Heaney’s letters are full of energy and joie de vivre, but a darker note persists as the pressure of celebrity grows, says Roy Foster
Who planned Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson’s murder?
Until very recently, political assassination was a mercifully uncommon occurrence in British politics, though that has changed. Previously when such…
Irish quartet: Beautiful World, Where Are You?, by Sally Rooney, reviewed
The millennial generation of Irish novelists lays great store by loving relationships. One of the encomia on the cover of…
Blindness and betrayal still bedevil Britain’s policy in Ireland
Charles Péguy’s adage that everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics is sharply illustrated by the development of the…
The wildest Wilde of all: the scandalous life of Oscar’s father
‘To have a father is always big news,’ according to the narrator of Sebastian Barry’s early novel, The Engine of…
Gerry Adams: from jail to the Dail
When I recently asked a sardonic Northern Irish friend what historical figures Gerry Adams resembled, the tasteless reply came back:…
Was Éamon de Valera Ireland’s Franco?
A highlight of this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival was the Rough Magic Theatre Company’s production of The Train, a musical…
Pitfalls on the road to the Rising
The centenary of the Easter Rising is already being commemorated. Ahead of the flood of books that will follow, Roy Foster chooses two impressive, if sombre ones to be going on with
