There has been lots of coverage this week to mark the centenary of the Bandon Valley murders. Between 26 and 28 April 1922 13 Protestants were murdered in and around Dunmanway in West Cork. Condemned by many as sectarian at the time, the motivation for these killings has been a matter of intense historical debate.

At this year's Festival we will hear from people who approach the subject from a variety of perspectives including Andy Bielenberg from UCC, Gemma Clark from University of Exeter, Brian Walker from Queen's University Belfast and independent scholar Don Wood. Our 2022 Festival will run 6-7 August and a full programme will be available on our website soon.. In the meantime, there are interesting articles on the subject from the Irish Times here the Examiner here and the Independent here.

Also in the Irish Times was an Irish angle on the new film Operation Mincemeat., based on the excellent book by Ben Macintyre, which tells the story of a very successful Second World War deception operation. The article profiled the improbably named Salvador Augustus ‘Don’ Gomez-Beare who played an important role in the deception - read all about it here.

And finally, the excellent BBC Radio 4 series The Museums that Make Us recently featured the National Museums of Northern Ireland. It includes a discussion about how museums can reflect history and memory, and also features the famous blackboard from the TV series Derry Girls, now in the Ulster Museum's collections (see below).