History: A Nation And Not aRabble: The Irish Revolution 1913-1923. By Diarmaid Ferriter. Profile Books, €37.80. Reviewed by Emmanuel Kehoe.
On June 18, our nearest neighbour will be celebrating its victory at the battle of Waterloo, 200 years ago. It was, as the British commander the Duke of Wellington said, “a damned near-run thing”.
Those who appreciate the inevitable ironies of history will recall that Wellington’s bacon was saved by the arrival of his allies, the Prussians. A century later, it was the Prussians who were the monsters of Europe, not the French. The Battle of Waterloo was fought just over 15 kilometres south of Brussels, in what is now Belgium, the ...
