Across the water: personal and political reflections on holding dual British-Irish citizenship

After the Brexit vote, Richard S Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London) became an Irish citizen, meaning that he has dual British-Irish citizenship. This was partly from his desire to retain a European identity. More importantly, it reflected a Northern Irish ancestry which, before and after partition, was intimately bound up with the rest of the island. He suggests that for those with ties to Ulster, holding dual citizenship may help to break down barriers between the Republic and Northern Ireland

From Genealogy to Reconciliation: Public Engagement with Remembrance of the First World War in Ireland

Over the past two decades in Britain and Ireland there has been a significant growth in opportunities to engage in genealogy and it is now arguably a form of cultural activity in its own right. This growth has been driven by and contributed to a range of television programmes and monthly magazines. Such growth has rested on the rapid expansion of sources available on the internet. These developments have enabled those in Ireland (north and south) who wish to examine their ancestry to do so. Meanwhile, as a consequence of the Northern Ireland peace process nationalists and republicans who have not previously wished to discuss their forebears’ role in the British military are now more willing to do so. This article examines the ways in which this has happened, offering seven categories for the types of work which have taken place and continue to do so: official, museums, regimental associations, books of honour, memorials, community and centenary. It argues that genealogy can reveal shared experiences across sectarian divides and this helps to complicate simplistic narratives. Such complication can have a powerful role in reconciliation

Change and continuity in the Liberal Democrat election campaign of 2005

The Liberal Democrat campaign of 2005 was judged by the public to be the most effective of the three main campaigns. It also delivered tangible gains: more seats and more votes for the second successive election. However, the campaign has been criticised, and there has been disappointment within the party that the gains were not greater. This article considers why the party's 2005 campaign was largely the same as in 2001, examining how far the party changed in the intervening years. It begins by highlighting policy changes and then argues that although policy changed significantly, the party's overall message remained basically the same. The nature of the party's election strategy and tactics are then examined, followed by an assessment of how the party might develop its approach in future

Leo Amery's imperialist alternative to appeasement in the 1930s

native tactics were significantly different from government policy. As such, aspects of the anti-appeasement case should be seen as being more nuanced than previously recognized, and the imperialist dimension of it should be understood

Introduction: The Irish Soldier in the British Army, c. 1680-1922

The papers in this volume are a selection of those delivered at a conference at the National Army Museum in London in July 2022, held to mark the centenary of the disbandment of the ‘southern’ Irish regiments on the creation of the Irish Free State.  This introduction summarizes each paper, situating them in analysis of past historiography on the Irish soldier in the British Army.  It argues that while the First World War still looms large in that historiography, researchers are now more often moving beyond it, while also analysing matters such as class, gender and global contexts

Ireland’s New Memory of the First World War: Forgotten Aspects of the Battle of Messines, June 1917

The narrative of the 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) divisions fighting side-by-side at Messines in June 1917 plays a major and valuable role in cross-community reconciliation on the island of Ireland. However, there is no sustained historical analysis of precisely who (in terms of geographic origin) was serving in the two divisions by June 1917. This article does that, concluding that around one-third of the men in each division had no Irish connection. This opens up the prospect of nuancing the Messines narrative so that it might play a part in British-Irish reconciliation

Military History from the Street: New Methods for Researching First World War Service in the British Military

Local studies of military service in the First World War have traditionally focused on ‘Pals’ or other units known to be linked to a specific area. However, the availability of new records online has revolutionized the way in which local studies can be carried out. A ‘military history from the street’ approach can now document and analyse service by all those from a local area who served. The article explains how such socio-military methods, as used in the author’s monograph on West Belfast (Belfast Boys, London, Continuum, 2009), can be adapted to other areas, with a particular focus on employment data not included in that study

A Life in the Trenches? The Use of Operation War Diary and Crowdsourcing Methods to Provide an Understanding of the British Army’s Day-to-Day Life on the Western Front

Operation War Diary, launched in 2014, is a crowdsourcing project in which ‘Citizen Historians’ tag First World War British Army Western Front war diaries to create data for analysis. This article discusses the methodology used in the project and then analyses (for the duration of the war) data for the six original British Expeditionary Force infantry divisions (1-6) and the first two cavalry divisions (1-2) to arrive in France. It highlights uses of the data on issues such as how much time was spent at the front and/or fighting, which appears to be 47% for infantry battalions, 62% for the artillery and 20% for the cavalry. At 46%, artillery days involving some fighting were more than twice the infantry’s at 20%. The article also highlights further research questions and ways in which fuller datasets could be compiled using crowdsourcing methods

Generic Tracking of Multiple Apparent Horizons with Level Flow

We report the development of the first apparent horizon locator capable of finding multiple apparent horizons in a ``generic'' numerical black hole spacetime. We use a level-flow method which, starting from a single arbitrary initial trial surface, can undergo topology changes as it flows towards disjoint apparent horizons if they are present. The level flow method has two advantages: 1) The solution is independent of changes in the initial guess and 2) The solution can have multiple components. We illustrate our method of locating apparent horizons by tracking horizon components in a short Kerr-Schild binary black hole grazing collision.Comment: 13 pages including figures, submitted to Phys Rev

Tissue-specific calibration of extracellular matrix material properties by transforming growth factor-beta and Runx2 in bone is required for hearing

Publisher version: http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v11/n10/full/embor2010135.htmlDA - 20100917 IS - 1469-3178 (Electronic) IS - 1469-221X (Linking) LA - ENG PT - JOURNAL ARTICLEDA - 20100917 IS - 1469-3178 (Electronic) IS - 1469-221X (Linking) LA - ENG PT - JOURNAL ARTICLEDA - 20100917 IS - 1469-3178 (Electronic) IS - 1469-221X (Linking) LA - ENG PT - JOURNAL ARTICLEPhysical cues, such as extracellular matrix stiffness, direct cell differentiation and support tissue-specific function. Perturbation of these cues underlies diverse pathologies, including osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, the molecular mechanisms that establish tissue-specific material properties and link them to healthy tissue function are unknown. We show that Runx2, a key lineage-specific transcription factor, regulates the material properties of bone matrix through the same transforming growth factor-beta (TGFbeta)-responsive pathway that controls osteoblast differentiation. Deregulated TGFbeta or Runx2 function compromises the distinctly hard cochlear bone matrix and causes hearing loss, as seen in human cleidocranial dysplasia. In Runx2(+/-) mice, inhibition of TGFbeta signalling rescues both the material properties of the defective matrix, and hearing. This study elucidates the unknown cause of hearing loss in cleidocranial dysplasia, and demonstrates that a molecular pathway controlling cell differentiation also defines material properties of extracellular matrix. Furthermore, our results suggest that the careful regulation of these properties is essential for healthy tissue functio