Monthly Archives: October 2011

Session 6: MemoriesChair: Prof Nicholas Allen (NUI Galway) Jay Winter, Yale UniversityLanguage and remembrance in the period of the Great War: Britain, France, Ireland Language mediates memory, a point which we have yet to integrate into our understanding of the … Continue reading →

Session 5: DivisionsChair: Dr Edward Madigan (Trinity College Dublin) Dr Anne Dolan (Trinity College Dublin)Divisions and divisions and divisions Shortly before leaving office in 2010 Brian Cowen encouraged us to ‘take the opportunities commemorations afford us to reflect on and … Continue reading →

Today ,as Chairman of the Somme Association, I attended a meeting of the Patronages of HRH The Duke of Gloucester KC, GCVO Working within the Veterans, Disabled and Healthcare Sector in The Yellow Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace. Between 1847 and … Continue reading →

Session 4: Claiming SovereigntyChair: Prof Eunan O’Halpin (Trinity College Dublin) Prof Paul Bew (Queen’s University Belfast). Paul was indisposed and was unable to give his paper.Nationalism and Unionism: A Churchillian Perspective 1912-22. The paper was to concentrate on the decline … Continue reading →

Session 3: BattlefrontsChair: Dr Adrian Gregory (Pembroke College, Oxford) Philip Orr (Independent Historian)Sacred Grounds: Great War Battlefields and Irish Memory This talk examined two battle fronts experienced by Irish regiments during the Great War and the ways in which those … Continue reading →

Session 2: VolunteeringChair: Prof Richard Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London) Dr Catriona Pennell (University of Exeter)More than a ‘curious footnote’: Irish Responses to Britain’s Call for Volunteers, 1914-1916 In 2009, the British Radio 1 DJ and television presenter, Chris Moyles, … Continue reading →

I returned yesterday from a Conference in Monte Carlo, Monaco…Ireland in the Decade of the Great War, 1912 – 1923: Towards Commemoration. I attended as High Sheriff of Belfast, Chairman of the Somme Association and Convenor of the Posse Comitatus with my … Continue reading →

My closing speech to today's Civic Reception at Belfast City Hall in honour of the Loch Lao Christian Heritage Festival included the following: Bangor, once the site of one of the largest schools in Ireland, was the jumping –off point … Continue reading →

Today, as High Sheriff of Belfast and President of the Ullans Academy I attended the Loch Lao Heritage Festival Civic Reception at the City Hall , Belfast. The welcome address by the Lord Mayor was as follows: Good afternoon elected … Continue reading →

This evening I was invited in my capacity as High Sheriff and as a guest of Paul Millar, one of the Partners of the practice of Hamilton Architects, to the official opening of Hamilton House, Joy Street, Belfast. Paul is … Continue reading →