January 2025 saw the publication of the latest volume in the series Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP). The collection, which looks at the years 1969 to 1973, is the first volume of the series to cover part of the period of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. In this special event to launch the volume, Dr Michael Kennedy, the head of the DIFP series, will introduce the collection. He will discuss the light it sheds on the way Britain responded to the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland as reported by Irish diplomats in London, and how the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs sought to persuade the Heath government to accept that Dublin had a legitimate interest in the affairs of the North. An expert panel will then discuss both the volume itself and the role of official and public history in exploring the conflict.
Chair: Prof Philip Murphy, director of History & Policy at the Institute of Historical Research
Panel
- Dr Michael Kennedy has been the executive editor of the Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series and head of the DIFP series since 1997. He has published extensively on Irish military and diplomatic history and on Irish foreign policy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College, Dublin and was a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University from 2009 to 2018. His publications include Ireland, the United Nations and the Congo (Four Courts Press, 2014, with Art Magennis).
- Lord Bew is co-chair (with Prof Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid) of the independent advisory panel for the UK Public History of the Troubles project announced by the British government in 2024. He is Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is a crossbench peer. Lord Bew was Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life from 2013 to 2018 and Chair of the House of Lords Appointments Commission from 2018 to 2023. He served as a historical adviser to the Bloody Sunday Tribunals.
- Prof Caoimhe Nic Dháibhéid is co-chair (with Lord Bew) of the independent advisory panel for the UK Public History of the Troubles project announced by the British government in 2024. She is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield and is a specialist on modern Irish History. Her publications include Terrorist Histories: Individuals and Political Violence since the 19th Century (Routledge 2016) and Seán MacBride (Liverpool University Press, 2011).
- Prof Huw Bennett is Professor of International Relations at Cardiff University. He specialises in strategic studies, the history of war and intelligence studies. His publications include Uncivil war: The British Army and the Troubles, 1966-1975 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency (CUP 2012). He served as an expert witness in the Mau Mau court case of 2009-11.
- Prof Patrick Salmon is chief historian at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and a visiting professor at Newcastle University. In 2001, he was a fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His publications include The Control of the Past: Herbert Butterfield and the Pitfalls of Official History (UoL Press, 2021) and Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890–1940 (CUP, 1997).
The IHR is grateful to the family and friends of David Eisenberg in providing their generous support for this lecture.
All welcome
This event is free to attend, but booking is required.