#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Peter M

Born and bred in Belfast, Peter M was schooled at RBAI before studying at Durham University. He now works in investment in London.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Brian Todd, RBAI

Brian Todd was born in Drogheda in the early 1950s of northern Presbyterian parents. He lived in Dundalk until 1965 when he and his family moved back to Northern Ireland. Educated in both the secondary and grammar spheres before Queen’s University, Belfast. He "did one or two unmentionable things before settling to teaching in the late 1970s." He Taught history at Inst for over thirty years, taking the position of vice Principal 2001-2011, before retirement. In retirement Brian discovered running.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Jonathan Drennan

Jonathan Drennan is the classic Belfast and Northern Ireland émigré. Born in Dundonald and raised in East Belfast, he attended RBAI then and Trinity, College Dublin. From Dublin the call of work took Jonathan to London and latterly Sydney, from where he responded to this interview.

Brian John Spencer: "When did you first learn about the Easter Rising of 1916?" Jonathan Drennan: 

"Comparatively recently, at university in Dublin, where I took it on myself to read up on it myself. I had barely studied it at school which was generally focused on the second world war for GCSE History."

Is the Irish tricolour a "symbol of compromise"?

Robert Lynd, republican writer born in Belfast. by David Low

Robert Lynd, a former pupil of RBAI, wrote in June 1936 in the New Statesman, ‘In Defence of Pink’:

"Possibly, my love of a blending, a moderation, of colours is due to the fact that I grew up in a country in which the political colours were, in Mr. Chesterton’s phrase, “rich and glowing.” In the Ireland of my youth, orange was not permitted to be blended with green, and green was not perceptively diluted with orange."