Trump “would love to see” Irish reunification

On 9/11’s 25th, other terrorism, and victims’ memorials

The ivy-covered, wildflower-strewn grotto with the Virgin Mary statue was expected. The 9/11 memorial was not. I encountered both within a few feet of each other during an early July walk through the grounds of St. Kevin’s Parish Church in Glendalough, County Wicklow.

The simple granite sculpture, seen below, represents the 110-story twin towers of the former World Trade Center in New York City, reduced to rubble after terrorists flew planes into each building 25 years ago. The sculpture was the last creation of Brother Joseph McNally, a County Mayo-born artist who witnessed the towers collapse. He died two weeks before the first anniversary of the attack.^[1]Marie Cranley, St. Kevin’s parish secretary, in August 19, 2026, email reply to my outreach. Brother McNally should not be confused with New York-based photographer Joe McNally, who created the … Continue reading

The 9/11 memorial at St. Kevin’s Parish Church in Glendalough, County Wicklow. The front right tablet is shown below. The back right tablet is inscribed IX – XI … 9/11. (Holan 2026)

“This monument marks the tragedy and challenge to peace posed by this event and is located in the context of a path reflecting on the defining choices we make on our journey today,” reads a description on the Glendalough Hermitage Centre website. The retreat center and parish church are joined by a large meditation garden, which contains other pieces by Brother McNally. The famous sixth century monastic ruin is just a mile down the road.

The 9/11 monument reminded me of an earlier trip to Ireland. When I landed in Dublin on September 22, 2001, Irish newspapers were packed with stories about the terrorist attacks. The death toll was still uncertain at the time. It eventually settled at just under 3,000 people killed and upwards of 10,000 injured. Some 4,000 others are said to have died later from injuries and exposure to toxic dust. Eighteen of the victims had Irish citizenship, with seven born on the island of Ireland. Moreover, at least a third of the victims had direct family ties to Ireland, including numerous members of the Fire Department of New York and New York Police Department.^[2]“Memories of 9/11 at Home and Abroad”, Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, NY. Undated web page accessed at https://irish-us.org/events/memories-911-home-and-abroad. Wikipedia says six Irish … Continue reading

One of my first stops was a memorial to victims of the May 1974 Dublin and Monaghan attacks; a one-day series of multiple car bombings in the Irish capital and Northern Ireland border town. The Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group during the Troubles, 19 years later claimed responsibility for the carnage. Thirty-three people were killed and nearly 300 injured.

Later, in Derry, Northern Ireland, I visited a memorial to 14 victims of Bloody Sunday, in January 1972, when British troops opened fire on civil rights marchers. It is located near the “Free Derry Corner” of the city’s Bogside neighborhood, better know for its colorful murals that depict the episode and other events of the Troubles. I also attended a hearing of the Saville Inquiry at the Guildhall, the government’s second probe into the bloodshed. The original inquiry, hurriedly conducted in 1972, was widely dismissed as a whitewash.

“We will be here as long as we need to be,” John Kelly, brother of one of the victims, told me. “What’s a couple more years, since we have waited nearly 30 to hopefully get truth and justice.”^[3]“Terrorism In Northern Ireland”, Mobile Register, October 28, 2001.

It would take nine more years before the Saville Inquiry produced its damning report. British Prime Minister David Cameron formally apologized for the massacre, telling the House of Commons the killings by British soldiers were “unjustified and unjustifiable.”

Indeed, state actors can also be terrorists, as we see today with the Trump administration’s militarized immigration enforcement and other domestic policing. There’s also a notorious example in Irish history. On the same trip that brought me to St. Kevin’s, I stopped at the Ballyseedy Monument, just outside Tralee, County Kerry. In March 1923, during the Irish Civil War, Irish Free State forces tied eight anti-government fighters to a landmine, detonated it, then finished off the few who survived the blast with machine gun fire.

The Ballyseedy Monument near Tralee, County Kerry. (Holan 2026)

Back in 2001, Kelly told me he was stunned by the airplane attacks in New York and Washington. “It was one of the most horrific acts of terrorism I have witnessed, even if you put it side-by-side to any event that has happened over the last 30 years in our country.”

A few days later I drove to Omagh, also in Northern Ireland. In August 1998 an Irish Republican Army splinter group carried out a car bombing that killed 29 people and injured 220. The post-Good Friday Agreement attack was the deadliest single event of the Troubles, second only to the collective toll of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. In the grim math of terrorism, the ratio of victims to residents in Omagh, population 17,000, was higher than in New York City, population 8 million.

“People here can relate to what’s happening in America,” David Killen, publisher of a weekly newspaper in Omagh, told me in 2001. “There were people here that had to bury coffins filled with sand bags because they didn’t have a body.”^[4]Ibid. Twenty-five years after 9/11, despite advances in DNA technology, there are still no identifiable remains for 40 percent of the victims at the twin towers—1,100 people.^[5]“Inside the lab working to identify the remains of 9/11 victims”, NPR report of September 11, 2025, accessed at … Continue reading

The grotto at St. Kevin’s Parish Church, Glendalough. (Holan 2026)

I walked from Killen’s office, past the still rebuilding blast site, to the town’s Memorial Garden on the banks of the River Strule. Tiny US flags and other makeshift remembrances linked the terrorism victims in America to those in Ireland. “Time slips past, but the heartache lasts,” read one handwritten note blurred by the rain. The 9/11 memorial in Glendalough reminded me of that simple truth. It doesn’t matter what violent outrage is being remembered, or how long ago it occurred, or whether it was committed by state or non-state terrorists.

Grottos that commemorate the reported 1858 appearances of the Virgin Mary to the young Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, France, are ubiquitious in Ireland; on church grounds such as St. Kevin’s, rural crossroads, and village squares. They are lovelier and more peaceful to consider than memorials to victims of violent terrorism.

In Ireland, there are at least four other 9/11 memorials in addition to Brother McNally’s sculpture. In the United States, the three primary national 9/11 memorials are at the attack sites in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But many dozen more 9/11 memorials are found in American communities, large and small, from coast to coast. You might encounter one when you least expect it.

Lest we forget.

References[+]

References
↑1	Marie Cranley, St. Kevin’s parish secretary, in August 19, 2026, email reply to my outreach. Brother McNally should not be confused with New York-based photographer Joe McNally, who created the “Faces of Ground Zero” exhibit.
↑2	“Memories of 9/11 at Home and Abroad”, Irish American Heritage Museum, Albany, NY. Undated web page accessed at https://irish-us.org/events/memories-911-home-and-abroad. Wikipedia says six Irish nationals died in the attacks.
↑3	“Terrorism In Northern Ireland”, Mobile Register, October 28, 2001.
↑4	Ibid.
↑5	“Inside the lab working to identify the remains of 9/11 victims”, NPR report of September 11, 2025, accessed at https://www.kpbs.org/news/national/2025/09/11/inside-the-lab-working-to-identify-the-remains-of-9-11-victims.

Letter describes ‘extraordinarily beautiful’ Achill Island in summer 1923

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(Of all the correspondence that I have ever read in various archives, few match the letter below for its lovely descriptions of the west of Ireland. This post was origionally published in July 2024. MH)

Chester A. Arthur III, grandson of the late 19th century U.S. president, and his wife, Charlotte, lived in Ireland for several years beginning in 1922.^[1]The couple married in June 1922 in England, then honeymooned and settled in Ireland. The also traveled to other parts of Europe and back to the United States. Chester was bisexual, including affairs … Continue reading Chester supported anti-treaty republicans in the Irish Civil War. He wrote letters to the editor and longer pieces about Ireland for U.S. newspapers.

The American couple befriended Irish nationalists Darryl and Millie Figgis. The Irish couple in 1913 had bought a small house and some land at Pullagh, Achill Island, in County Mayo, a place to escape the noise and grime of Dublin. That became more true during the ensuing decade of revolutionary violence. The Arthurs arrived as the Figgis’ guests in July 1923. Chester, then 22, described their “cozy little cottage by the broad Atlantic” in a letter to his mother.^[2]From the large collection of Arthur family papers at the Library of Congress.

Lightly edited selections of his descriptions begin below the photo:

Achillbeg, Achill Island Fáilte Ireland

“Although there is not a tree within miles, the huge cliffs, the golden beach, the heather purple hills and the turquoise green sea make this place one of the most extraordinarily beautiful I have ever seen. And here of course is the real Gaeltacht, the real Ireland unanglicized and pagan. Each family builds and repairs their own stone whitewashed walls and their own barley thatch. They are self-supporting, their clothes are hand-made from the sheep’s back to their own; they cure their own hams, grind their own oatmeal, brew their own poteen, and catch and dry their own fish.

“Irish of course is the language spoken and sung in plaintive harmony. The men wear short white jackets and big black hats; sometimes the sweater underneath is blue and sometimes burned orange (both dyes are taken from the sea). Their trousers are of the thick homespun which in England is only worn by gentlemen. The women sit behind them sidewise on the horse’s rump when they go to Mass. Their skirts are usually brilliant red, their bodices either green, blue or purple; the shawls over their heads are always black. They have very wide high cheekbones, rather delicately chiseled straight noses, and straight black or red hair. Their long eyes are almost always very beautiful, every color that the sea takes on incites moods. If they do not know you they are very shy, but after the ice is broken, they prove very witty and amusing.

“A cèilidh^[3]A social gathering with singing, dancing, and storytelling. was gotten up in our honor. The Figgis’ are very popular here. Almost the whole village crowds into a small cabin and after a few songs the four most enterprising young men get out in the middle and beckon the four belles for the square dance. They clog and whirl themselves a space in the crowd, which packs up against the walls. The room gets very hot, the clean healthy sweat from the dancers fill the air with a primitive very stimulating aroma. Eyes begin to gleam; queer little stifled cries burst from the boys as they stomp and whirl around and around their partners, who turn and turn and command respect with their eyes, yet invite and call with every essence of their bodies. And all the time the fiddle is scraping away music thousands of years old, rhythm inconceivably quick and throbbing, yet in minor key, and with a queer bagpipe drone making almost a syncopation of discord; the very heart of the stranger beats in time to the little lame boy’s fiddling.

“Now as I write, I gaze out of the little deep set window across the boggy headland, where the old women are gathering peat, across the sea, which like a great cruel gray cat lies between the violet mountains, and purrs as its sleep. The wind is keening the drowned fishermen whom the grey cat has struck with his claws. And every now and then the wind dies down, in a flash of sunshine, the cat opens his long green eyes and looks at me; but always dozes off to sleep again.

“The wind is never still here. Sometimes it only moans and cries a drone to the seagulls’ piping; but then at other times it rises with the force of a hundred djinns (In Arabian and Muslim mythology, an intelligent spirit of lower rank than the angels) and carries away the roof of the houses however securely they are tied it to the imp-headed beams sticking out from the walls near the top. And then the people pray, some to God the Father, and some to Manannán,^[4]Celtic sea god. and some to both—it is all the same, for they will have in any case to rob the cow of her barley straw, and weave a new thatch, and try some new device to keep it on. But sometimes the winds work under the slates of the new British built houses, and slates go flying over the bog and over the grey cliffs into the sea; then what glee among the natives that the newfangled roofs are really no better than the roof their fathers taught them to make, only when they do fly off they cost twice as much and take twice as long to repair. …

“A fisherman was drowned the other day. The sea was dragged with grappling hooks, prayers were offered up for the recovery of the body for burial in holy ground. All Christian means having failed, the dead man’s coat was sent for. After it had been blessed by the priest, an incantation was whispered over it preserved from Druid days, and then it was taken out and thrown into the sea. The swift current bore it along until suddenly it seemed to resist the force of the current and rested still. The sea was dragged and just under the coat the man’s body was found, and great thanks were given up to God.

“… The lad^[5]Presumably, D. Figgis. and I go on expeditions up the mountains and fishing on the sea. We swim twice a day, so we don’t care that there are no bathtubs. Charlotte and Mrs. Figgis accompany us whenever they can and keep each other company except at mealtime when they marvel at the quantity we eat. No life could be healthier than this, certainly. We are so tired at ten o’clock that we go to bed and right to sleep though it is still very light.

“I am certainly going to have a cottage on this wild west coast of Ireland to which I can go in retreat from the roiling of the great world. Everything here is primitive and oh so restful and refreshing after New York and Dublin. Real communism exists as a matter of course here, for the people love each other. Love and hard work and a close touch with nature, what more ennobling can be found in life?”

Not long after their visit to Achill Island, Chester and Charlotte Arthur witnessed the August 1923 arrest of Éamon de Valera at a campaign event at Ennis, County Clare. Within the next two years Millie and Darryl Figgis each committed suicide. The Arthurs divorced in 1932.

Keem Beach, Achill Island. Fáilte Ireland

References[+]

References
↑1	The couple married in June 1922 in England, then honeymooned and settled in Ireland. The also traveled to other parts of Europe and back to the United States. Chester was bisexual, including affairs with Irish republicans. See Maurice J. Casey’s, “A Queer Migrant in the Irish Civil War.”
↑2	From the large collection of Arthur family papers at the Library of Congress.
↑3	A social gathering with singing, dancing, and storytelling.
↑4	Celtic sea god.
↑5	Presumably, D. Figgis.

Guest post: Mayo wins All-Ireland; ends 75-year curse

(Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my ancestral roots in County Kerry. So it is in the spirit of good sportsmanship and friendship that I am delighted to publish this guest post by County Mayo historian Daniel Carey. MH)

It’s an Irish sporting story that’s been heard round the world. Former US President Joe Biden has sent his congratulations. The New York Times has written in depth about it. And a lot of people who thought Mayo was only a thick, creamy sauce now know it’s also the home of the All-Ireland Gaelic football champions.

Daniel Carey, left, and Eamonn McConnon of DCU Research enjoy a post-match drink.

Mayo’s victory in the final against defending champions Kerry (who were seeking a record fortieth title) marked the end of a long wait. This title, Mayo’s fourth, came 75 years since their last success in the premier competition for Gaelic football. Since 1951, when they last triumphed, Mayo have been to the All-Ireland final eleven times, and came up short every time. Until 2026.

Much of the international coverage of Mayo’s triumph has been framed around the ending of a curse to rival that of the Bambino (Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox, 1918-2004), or the Chicago Cubs billy goat (1945-2016). In Ireland, the story goes that overly enthusiastic celebrations in the wake of the 1951 success disrupted a funeral in the Mayo town of Foxford, which prompted an enraged priest to announce that Mayo would never win an All-Ireland title while the players involved were still alive. The fact that there is no record of any such funeral taking place, or any account of an alleged curse dating back further than the 1990s, were, of course, mere details. A series of hard-luck stories in finals had made the curse a part of Mayo lore. The last surviving member of the squad died in 2023.

Curse or no curse, Ireland in 1951 was a very different place than today. The major political scandal that year involved the resignation of Minister for Health Noel Browne, whose efforts to introduce free maternity care (the so-called Mother and Child Scheme) faltered in the face of opposition from the Catholic Church hierarchy and the medical establishment and a cabinet happy to have the bishops dictate social policy. Mass attendance (more than 95 percent among Irish Catholics in the early 1950s, according to historian Louise Fuller) was then a rite observed by virtually all match attendees on Sunday morning. Not that there was a shortage of Mayo prayers in 2026: the day of the final coincided with Reek Sunday, an annual day of pilgrimage in which thousands come to Mayo to climb Croagh Patrick, a holy mountain on which Saint Patrick is said to have fasted for forty days on the summit.

Ireland is not only a less religious society three-quarters of a century on, it has also been transformed by technology. Much of Mayo was without electricity in 1951, the rural electrification scheme having only begun in 1946. Running water and indoor toilets were also beyond the reach of many. People sharing accounts of attending the 1951 final describe journeying the width of the country by bicycle. One thing remains the same: though they may train like professionals, then as now the players are amateurs; they receive travelling expenses, but not pay for play.

Unemployment and emigration were facts of life in the impoverished west of Ireland in the mid-twentieth century. The Commission on Emigration and Other Problems report, released in 1954, found that Mayo had experienced net emigration of 52,200 between 1926 and 1951. The destinations may have changed – young adults now head for Dubai or Australia rather than Boston or Cleveland – but Mayo people can still be found all over the world. In his post-match speech, Mayo captain Jack Coyne specifically mentioned those living far from home. “To every young boy and girl across Mayo and our diaspora across the world,” he said, “never stop dreaming, stick your chests out and be proud to be from Mayo.”

There was barely a dry eye in the house as Coyne uttered those words, having moments earlier lifted the Sam Maguire Cup (a trophy named for a Cork-born Irish republican, a replica of the famous Ardagh Chalice). While fans of the losing team generally leave before the formal presentation, most the 83,000-plus crowd remained in situ to watch history being made.

Irish newspapers reported Mayo’s victory in the 2026 All-Ireland Gaelic football final, ending a 75-year “curse” since the county’s last win in 1951.

In the absence of television (which would not arrive in Ireland for another decade), footage of the 1951 final appeared on newsreels. Television was, of course, the medium of choice in 2026 for those watching live, but social media has dominated the dissemination since. Mayo manager Andy Moran, a celebrated former player, himself referenced the two-minute clip of the final stages of the game as heard on the local station, Midwest Radio. Mayo fan Shane Fitzgerald was captured on camera blessing himself, bursting into tears and collapsing to his knees at the final whistle. Congratulatory messages came in to this writer’s phone from all parts of Ireland … and from Indian, Iranian and American friends who have been introduced to the Mayo story and been captivated by it.

The county anthem ‘The Green and Red of Mayo’ (sung by the Saw Doctors, a band from neighbouring County Galway) got not one but two outings over the Croke Park public address system after the final whistle … and has been heard hundreds of time since. Twenty-four hours later, approximately 60,000 people were at MacHale Park, the Mayo stadium in the county town of Castlebar, to welcome home the team (and the Sam Maguire Cup). Joe Biden was referencing the eponymous trophy when he shouted “Mayo for Sam” on a visit to his ancestral home of Ballina in 2023. Three years later – nay, 75 years later – Sam is finally in Mayo. And there’s been no talk about disrupted funerals.

(Daniel Carey is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Communications in Dublin City University. His current project, funded by Research Ireland, examines the archives of the Catholic Standard newspaper, published in Ireland between 1928 and 1978. A native of Mayo, he spent 11 years as a print journalist with the Westport-based Mayo News.)

On printing, and reproducing, the 1916 Easter Proclamation

Scituate, Massachusetts, USA, part of the South Shore Irish Heritage Trail. (October 2022)

The three men inside Dublin’s Libery Hall surely heard the church bells tolling on Easter Sunday, even over the cacophany of their printing press. Perhaps the trio reflectively straightened to bless themselves. But they quickly returned to their ink-stained work, laboring from midday Sunday until early Monday morning. Hours later, in front the General Post Office on O’Connell Street, Pádraig Pearse read aloud from a copy of their finished work: the 1916 Easter Proclamation:

“IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom. …”

Before that signal moment, the three workers–printer Christopher Brady, and compositors Michael Malloy and Liam O’Brien–produced the Proclamation in two stages, top and bottom, due to lack of type. The two sections are identifiable by different line spacing. The tempramental rollers of their old Wharfdale Double-Crown printing press meant uneven pressure smudged some letters, while others appeared too faint. See images and videio at this online exhibition from University College Cork.

Copies of the Easter Proclamation proliferated quickly. Fascimiles and newly typeset versions appeared in the American press within days of the British military supressing the uprising. More copies appeared after the execution of the rebel leaders.

From the front page of Fall River (Massachusetts) Daily Globe, May 19, 1916. Press reports as early as May 1, 1916, quoted the Proclamation in full.

About 60 origional copies of the Declaration are know to have survived from a press run estaimated at no more than 1,000. That’s 6 percent, 110 years later. As context, there are 26 origional copies of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, known as the Dunlap Broadside, from a press run of 200. That’s 13 percent, 250 years later.

About half the surving origional copies of the Procalamation are held at public institutions in Ireland, including UCC and Trinity College Dublin. But the document has been widely reproduced, including public monuments on both sides of the Atlantic. See top and below.

Dungarvan, County Waterford, Ireland. (June 2026)

Leon Uris’s ‘Trinity’ at 50

I am traveling and working on several projects this summer. New posts will be infrequent. The piece linked below appears in the July/August issue of the Dublin-based History Ireland magazine. MH

American author Leon Uris released his eighth novel, Trinity, shortly before St Patrick’s Day 1976 and the deadliest years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. In promotional interviews Uris emphasized that readers would ‘better understand the headlines coming out of Ireland today, because the past of Ireland is being constantly repeated’. This was a paraphrase of his novel’s soon-to-be-famous last sentence, that ‘in Ireland there is no future, only the past happening over and over’, which modified a line from Eugene O’Neill’s A Moon for the Misbegotten.

Read ‘When Irish History, And News, Became Best-Selling Fiction’ at History Ireland.

Three postcards from Ireland, summer 2026

I am traveling and working on several projects. New posts will be infrequent through the summer. I’m happy to be in Ireland at the moment. Three postcards below. MH

Looking northeast from the 10th floor of the Central Plaza building in Temple Bar, Dublin: construction cranes at left; the Ha’penny pedestrain bridge over the tree-lined north side of the River Liffey, center left; the Spire of Dublin on O’Connell Street, near the historic General Post Office, and top portion of Croke Park, center horizon; and the 17-story Liberty Hall, once the tallest building in Ireland, at far right. View through glass panel.Round towers at the Glendalough monastic ruins in County Wicklow.The Waterford Greenway, right, looking southwest about 6K outside Dungarvan, County Waterford. Not a drop of rain fell during my cycle.

TCD offers Davitt exhibit onsite & online through June

Davitt

“Michael Davitt was a prolific writer, keeping diaries of his ideas and impressions while working as a freelance journalist for most of his career. Many of his articles took the form of letters to the press, which were later published as pamphlets. Through his journalism, Davitt practiced a form of activism, using his writing to highlight the struggles of society’s most marginalised and advocate for reforms and support.”

The quote is from the Character is better than wealth: The enduring legacy of Michael Davitt exhibition at Trinity College Dublin. It was curated by Ciara Daly, a project archivist at TCD, which holds some 7,000 items from Davitt’s lifetime, 1846-1906. He visited the United States six times between 1878 and 1901.

I spent a few days in February 2018 reviewing a portion of the Davitt archive, and visiting the Michael Davitt Musuem in Straide, County Mayo, where he was born and buried. The research related to my “Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited” project, mentioned in the previous post. See the posts Meeting Davitt and More Davitt. My piece “1888: An American Journalist In Ireland Meets Michael Davitt & Arthur Balfour” also published on The Irish Story later that year.

Davitt’s grave, Straide, County Mayo, February 2018.

HIATIUS: I am traveling and working on other projects. New posts will be infrequent through the spring and summer. I can be reached via contact form on the “About Me” page. Thanks, MH

An American journalist’s connection to Ireland and Egypt

HIATIUS: I am traveling and working on other projects. New posts will be infrequent through the spring and summer. I can be reached via contact form on the “About Me” page. Thanks, MH

What does a 3,500-year-old Egyptian red granite obelisk in New York City’s Central Park have to do with Ireland or Irish America? Nothing. But there are indirect connections.

Hurlbert

William Henry Hurlbert, a late-nineteenth century editor of the New York World, determined the city should match London’s acquisition of a similar object. His campaign resulted in the June 1880 arrival of the seven-story (69 feet) obelisk, seen below. It was raised in February 1881 on a small hill behind the Metrololitian Museum of Art, which opened about the same time. The MET holds one of the world’s largest Egyptian collections under its roof, in addition to the so-called “Cleopatra’s Needle” in the park.

The link to Ireland comes through Hurlbert, who traveled throughout the island in early 1888. Later that year he published the book, Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American. The conservative Hurlbert was pro-landlord and anti-home rule. Read about his work in my 2018 blog series: “Ireland Under Coercion, Revisited.”

I have visited numerous places in Ireland that Hurlbert described in his book. I was pleased to remember his connection to the obelisk as I walked through Central Park on my way to the American Irish Historical Society. Founded in Boston in 1897 (Hurlbert died two years earlier), the Society since 1940 has been located at 991 Fifth Avenue, directly across from the MET, barely a five-minute walk from the granite tower.

American journalist William Henry Hurlbert led an 1880 campaign to bring this Egyptian obelisk to Central Park in New York City. Eight years later he wrote a book about Ireland.

Car bombs raise terrorist threats in Northern Ireland

UPDATE:

“No matter ‘how scaled down’ the New IRA is, there will always be dissidents married to the idea of the ‘long war’ and prepared to ‘carry the flame’ of violent republicanism from one generation to the next, regardless of the contrary views of the overwhelming mass of the population.” Nice roundup piece by Gerry Moriarty at the Irish Times. … A 66-year-old man has charged with several crimes in the Dunmurry episode.

ORIGINAL POST:

An April 25 car bomb explosion outside the Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, police station appears similar to an attempted attack on the Lurgan police station in March. The bomb did not explode in the earlier episode. No one has been killed or injured.

Nationalist and unionist political leaders have condemed both episodes, which are being blamed on dissident Irish republicans. Whether the attacks signal a new upsurge in paramilitary violence remains to be seen. The annual tensions of the unionist community’s marching season and bonfires begin in two months.

HIATIUS: I am traveling and working on other projects. New posts will be infrequent through the spring and summer. Reach me from the contact form on the “About Me” page. Thanks, MH

Mark Holan's Irish American Blog

Exploring news & history since 2012.

Trump “would love to see” Irish reunification

On 9/11’s 25th, other terrorism, and victims’ memorials

Letter describes ‘extraordinarily beautiful’ Achill Island in summer 1923

Guest post: Mayo wins All-Ireland; ends 75-year curse

On printing, and reproducing, the 1916 Easter Proclamation

Leon Uris’s ‘Trinity’ at 50

Three postcards from Ireland, summer 2026

TCD offers Davitt exhibit onsite & online through June

An American journalist’s connection to Ireland and Egypt

Car bombs raise terrorist threats in Northern Ireland

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