It was 1948, and as the military half-track drove through the Beit Netofa Valley, at the village of Madna in Galilee, shots rang out. One Israeli soldier was killed and another was hit in the head. A sniper had zeroed in on the men and was picking them off one by one.

Then, one of the half-track’s occupants, a tall,…

To outsiders, the village of Ballinalee, in County Longford, might seem like no great shakes, just a bump in the road, a blink-and-you-miss-it spot that you’re through before you even notice. Were they to consult a map of the county, the seemingly inconsequential dot called Ballinalee might be ignored in favour…

There are two routes I can take to my office when I leave the train station to go to work. They both pass a large 18^th century building of Palladian, neoclassical design, which I used to admire as a child, long before I knew of its connection to my own family.

Now, as I pass it by, I…

Noel Brady was standing with his father at the hall  door of their family home on St. Ignatius Road in Dublin’s North Strand area when they heard the drone of a Nazi Luftwaffe bomber flying overhead.

“I saw flashes in the sky. My father shoved me onto the…