Students in Cork are staging an exhibition exploring the modern-day relationship between writing and the letter, featuring some well-known faces, writes Eoin English

The issue of partition poisoned Irish politics for decades as Ireland sought to withdraw from the UK. Now it’s posing a constitutional problem for Britain, writes Ryle Dwyer

100 years ago, Constance Markievicz received a letter confirming her return as MP for Dublin St Patrick’s. Ireland’s first elected female politician was in prison at the time, and the letter was addressed: “Dear Sir”. Robert Hume investigates her colourful life

IT is not uncommon to overestimate the heft of contemporary events.

Liam Cosgrave was humble but played a key role in politics and will be remembered as doing the State exemplary service, writes Political Editor Daniel McConnell.

An officer and a gentleman is how Liam Cosgrave should be remembered.

As the Atlas Of The Irish Revolution hits bookshops, contributor Oliver O’Hanlon looks at the coverage of the conflict by overseas artists and journalists.

Previously unseen poems, slogans, and autographs of Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith, and Countess Markievicz capture the swarm of republican activity in Clare to kickstart Éamon de Valera’s political career 100 years ago.

It was not just the GAA that provided a link between Irish sporting organisations and the 1916 Rising, writes Kevin McCarthy

As the date of the Rising rapidly approached, this is what was happening behind the scenes 100 years ago this week

This is how the men and women who would be involved in the looming rebellion spent this week 100 years ago — some deeply involved in its planning, others still oblivious.

Sinéad Callanan, a student of Castletroy College in Limerick, was a prizewinner in the all-island Decade of Centenaries schools essay competition for this study of Na Fianna Éireann

Austin Stack was blamed by many for the disaster that befell the German guns plan in Kerry, but he played a key role later in the first Dáil, writes Ryle Dwyer

Des O’Sullivan reports on the wealth of 1916 memorabilia coming up for auction prior to the centenary.

THE title of Pat Talbot’s new play, A Great Arrangement, is a reference to what the director describes as “almost a fantasy” that Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan had. 

Another glance at the activities 100 years ago this week of key figures in the upcoming Rising, as recorded by authorities at the time, or recalled later by the participants.

The Irishman was a major figure in the Second Boer War, and one of the 16 men executed after the 1916 Rising, writes Donal Fallon

Some footage of Michael Collins has been released online by website www.irelandbirthofanation.com as part of the commemoration of the Easter Rising.

As an Irish exile in Trieste and Paris, James Joyce considered the matter of an Irish insurrection in detail. He kept in touch with Ireland mainly through Arthur Griffith’s United Irishman and Sinn Féin newspapers.

Literature, Gaelic games, and Irish classes were all activities in the early 1900s of the young nationalists who would later rally around the Rebellion, writes John Gibney.

ÉAMONN CEANNT is, in many ways, the ‘unknown’ man among the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, and the signatories to the proclamation of the Irish Republic.

It was little surprise that Sinn Féin, as part of its determined effort to highjack the 1916 commemoration, held its own August 1 event at the Glasnevin grave of Jeremiah O’ Donovan Rossa.

It’s a photograph that may have been seen by millions over the last 100 years – but how many people other than Pádraig Pearse did they all recognise?

Des O’Sullivan looks forward to an exciting sale of artefacts featuring the most famous names in Irish history.

THE American-born Emmet Dalton had such a fascinating career that it is surprising it has taken so long for a proper biography to be written.

The Tricolour said to have flown over Dublin during the 1916 Rising failed to sell at auction despite bids reaching €24,000.

A gun said to have been carried by Arthur Griffith in the early days of the Civil War has been quietly rediscovered after being hidden in an attic for decades, it has been claimed.

A gun said to have been carried by Arthur Griffith in the early days of the Civil War has been rediscovered after being hidden in an attic for decades, it has been claimed.

The architects of the Irish Free State will be remembered with a special ceremony at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin today.

The national conversation about 1916 is starting in earnest. What did it mean then; what does it say about us now?

Former Taoiseach, John Bruton, suggests that this September we should celebrate the anniversary of the granting of Home Rule to Ireland.

Anthony J Jordan tells us that 100 years ago Arthur Griffith advised that a "provisional government be set up in Dublin" by John Redmond and Edward Carson (Letters, August 4).

Arthur Griffith was a member of the Volunteers and at the Howth gunrunning.

While the words on the banner hung in front of Liberty Hall (‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland’) still resonate a century on, representing the values of a patriotic anti-imperialist neutrality, they mask an historical reality that was a good deal more complex than is generally allowed (Letters, July 4).

As we celebrate Bloomsday it might be of interest that while researching a biography of Arthur Griffith recently I was intrigued to discover a 20-year long relationship between himself and James Joyce, running from 1901 to 1922. While this was in the main in intellectual form, there was a close personal aspect to it at the start, middle and end.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has accused the Government of taking a “highly partisan” and “often tribal” approach to Ireland’s past, as preparations get under way to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising.

Almost like the event itself, it nearly didn’t happen, but a private collector has paid €30,000 for a letter in which Irish Volunteers commander Eoin MacNeill tried to call off the 1916 Rising.

To mark the bicentenary of the birth of Thomas Davis (1814-1845), UCC Emeritus Professor John A Murphy , assessed the patriot’s significance in a lecture on March 11, 2014 in Mallow, Davis’s birthplace. Here is the full text of his address.

Irish people are naturally very interested in the move towards an independent Scotland.

Ninety-one years after he was killed in an ambush in West Cork, it is surely time to allow Michael Collins to rest in peace.

Matt Cooper’s article (Opinion, Jul 26) articulates the eternal ambivalence of Irish attitudes to British royalty and now the royal birth in particular.

IT IS difficult to imagine now the intensity of the controversy that was stirred by the Treaty oath, or the fact that history could have ignored for so long that it was Michael Collins who essentially proposed that oath.