Search Results for 'Tawin'

Sir Roger Casement was a notable humanitarian and a British consul by profession but, ironically, an anti -Imperialist by nature. He over-stepped his diplomatic role to fiercely condemn Belgium for its brutalisation of the people of Congo*. His report, published in 1904, was however, well received by the British establishment, perhaps because it feared that little Belgium was getting too big for its boots, and too wealthy from its African ventures. Casement received a knighthood.

The preservation and the teaching of the Irish language has often provoked a passionate defence, no more so than on the island of Tawin. At the beginning of the last century a fierce row erupted when local people felt that Irish was not being taught in their local school, and took matters into their own hands. Children were kept away from the school, and money was raised to have them taught separately in their own language. It became a cause celibre attracting the support of such nationalist figures as Roger Casement. The story has been well told by Nollaig Mac Congáil in the current issue of the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society (Volume 62) which I will come back to next year.