Kevin Doyle

Happy to announce that I'm spending the summer in Paris at the Centre Culturel Irlandais to continue my research, having been awarded this year's Rev. Liam Swords Foundation Bursary.

Arrived yesterday, a beautiful building rich in Franco-Irish history

Delighted to be gifted this iconic edition of Paris Match from August 1969, covering the Battle of the Bogside in Derry. Likely the first introduction to the conflict for much of the French public.

Spotted in Dublin the other day: Sticker of Ali la Pointe, Algerian freedom fighter and protagonist of the great film "The Battle of Algiers"

Sticker from one of the Irish solidarity groups in Paris in the early 80s. A lot of love put into that British lion caricature

"Ireland - 800 years of colonialism"

No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of ‘no platforming’ at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist...

This week in 1974, the UK National
Union of Students first implemented their ‘no platform’ policy. I wrote about the history of this policy in my book, ‘No Platform: A History of
Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech’ (which is on sale here):

www.routledge.com/No-Platform-...

Miscellaneous Our Miscellaneous Section is where we will upload documents that don’t fit elsewhere or that we don’t have enough issues for a separate section. It will also feature groups and publications that mi…

For French speakers/the curious: A few scans of French Irish solidarity journals (Irlande Libre, Irlande en Lutte) in my collection have just been uploaded to the Irish Republican Digital Archive:

republicanarchive.com/2025/03/25/m...

When The Jackal Came To Dublin?

In 1976 you had claims in Irish media, such as this article in the Sunday World, that Ilich Ramirez Sánchez aka "Carlos the Jackal" had been living in Dundrum under the name Carlos Martinez in April 1974 for several months and had received hair/scalp treatment

1980 poster from the Irish Political Prisoners Defence Committee in Paris supporting the H-Block prisoners campaign.

"The Irish Prisoners Must Not Die"

March 1972: Bernadette Devlin, upon arriving in Bordeaux, France, was detained by French police and sent away on the next flight to London.

French Ministry of the Interior - "We have enough troublemakers in the country already without importing them"

(Daily Mirror, March 15 1972)

Irish Studies Review All journal articles featured in Irish Studies Review vol 32 issue 3

Our special issue of Irish Studies Review, co-edited by me, Sharon Crozier-DeRosa and Jimmy Wintermute, is out now. It has 5 articles on transnational activism, solidarity and Ireland and a 'snapshots' piece on the current field of transnational Irish studies.

tandfonline.com/toc/cisr20/3...

Karl Marx struggling to find obscure and out-of-print books on Ireland, highly relatable:

Also present at the protest - the Relatives Action Committee, SF, IRSP, People's Democracy. The french groups report notes that most of the prisoners were moved away from their cells before the protest, except one prisoner who stuck their arm out the window to wave a blanket at the protesters.

International Women's Day 1980: A protest outside Armagh Gaol for Republican women prisoners, organised by Irish organisation Women Against Imperialism drew 600, including members of the french feminist MLF Mouvement de libération des femmes.

(Photo by Irlande Libre)

Bobby Sands began his hunger strike in the H-Blocks this day 44 years ago today

Photo below shows banners hung from Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris by Irish solidarity activists in May of that year [source: AP/RN July 18 1981]

Very much looking forward to presenting a paper on some of my research at the @sofeir.bsky.social "Ireland and Transnational Solidarities" conference in Cork next month!

irlsolidarities.sciencesconf.org?lang=en

"For 10 years Ireland has resisted..."

Poster by Irish solidarity group Irlande Libre in 1979. The photo is attributed to Patrick Frilet, a prominent photojournalist who worked for the Libération newspaper.

The Map of the Belfast Pogrom This is not an article, but a project: a map of all the deaths of the Belfast Pogrom, with each person’s name, the date, nature and location of the killing, who was responsible and when the i…

New blog post: "The Map of the Belfast Pogrom," showing all the deaths of this period, with each person’s name, the date, nature and location of the killing, who was responsible and when the inquest was reported in the press.
#IrishHistory
thebelfastpogrom.com/2025/02/22/t...

Of the cases that went to trial in the following year all three sentences fell short of the sentences recommended by the prosecution. 2/2

1997: French authorities claimed to have dismantled a "French based IRA network", largely in Brittany, leading to seven arrests. Ultimately however the prison sentences would prove light for those charged, as was usually the case in France throughout the conflict. 1/2

🚨New Blog Post🚨 I wrote this for the COLVET
blog on how West African veteran records can help us put a face on the Global Greater War and its impacts outside Europe. It includes ten brief biographies of West African veterans and their wartime experiences around the globe. colvet.eu/tracing-the-...

« La République au collège », Paris, 29 octobre 1792 : catholicisme... An 1792, le 1er de la République françoise, le 29 [octobre], 8 heures du matin. Nous, membres du Conseil général de la Commune de Paris, commissaires nommés […] à l’effet d’assister et être présent...

Toujours intéressant d'en lire plus sur l'impact de la révolution française sur les irlandais en France de l'époque.

"...ces collégiens républicains adoptent presque automatiquement un « internationalisme révolutionnaire »..."

journals.openedition.org/etudesirland...

"Ireland: The English Algeria." Cover of the newspaper of the french Parti Socialiste following Bloody Sunday

The PS Mitterand government in 1982 would be implicated in the famous "Irish of Vincennes" case that saw three members of the IRSP framed for an attack on a Jewish restaurant in Paris.

Protester at a march for the Irish hunger strikers in Paris, 1981. Sign reads "Thatcher Murderer, She Killed Bobby Sands". Unknown origin

Bloody Sunday was also included as a last minute notice in the previous edition of L'Humanité Rouge the week before.

"It is certain that the Irish people will not forget this massacre perpetrated by the British army of occupation."

Article reacting to Derry's Bloody Sunday in L'Humanité Rouge, paper of the Parti communiste marxiste-léniniste, a french Maoist organisation [February 10 1972]

"The Irish people cry out in their righteous anger: “British imperialism out of Ireland!”"

Fascinating 1992 article from the Orange Standard, official paper of the Orange Order, in which they compare the North of Ireland to Algeria, and urge Loyalist paramilitaries not to make the same mistakes as the OAS.

They were ultimately extradited to Germany and convicted in 1995, though released shortly afterwards.

This was part of growing Europe wide security cooperation, and a sign that previous French leniency wouldn't hold

RA prisoner Pauline Drumm writing about her incarceration in French prison in 1990. Drumm had been arrested alongside Donncha O'Kane and Patrick Murphy, having been accused of carrying out attacks against British bases in Germany. [The Captive Voice Vol. 2 Issue 2.]

October 1981 cover of the Le Peuple Breton, journal of the left wing Union Démocratique Bretonne. The UDB had a close relationship with the Officials/Workers Party.

How Irish diplomats reacted to Bernadette Devlin's 1969 US tour The Irish Government found themselves in a delicate position when the civil rights activist and newly elected MP toured the US in 1969

My first piece on the new volume of @difp-ria.bsky.social (&first Bluesky post!), and it’s all about Irish diplomacy during Bernadette Devlin McAliskey’s 1969 US tour:
www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2... @rtebrainstorm.bsky.social