British Armed Forces
The British Armed Forces known as Her Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military services responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and the Crown dependencies. They promote Britain's wider interests, support international peacekeeping efforts and provide humanitarian aid. Since the formation of a Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, the armed forces have seen action in a number of major wars involving the world's great powers, including the Seven Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the First World War, the Second World War. Emerging victorious from conflicts has allowed Britain to establish itself as one of the world's leading military and economic powers. Today, the British Armed Forces consist of: the Royal Navy, a blue-water navy with a fleet of 75 commissioned ships, together with the Royal Marines, a specialised amphibious light infantry force; the British Armed Forces include standing forces, Regular Reserve, Volunteer Reserves and Sponsored Reserves.
Its Commander-in-chief is the British monarch Queen Elizabeth II, to whom members of the forces swear allegiance. The UK Parliament approves the continued existence of the British Army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years, as required by the Bill of Rights 1689; the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines among with all other forces do not require this act. The armed forces are managed by the Defence Council of the Ministry of Defence, headed by the Secretary of State for Defence; the United Kingdom is one of five recognised nuclear powers, is a permanent member on the United Nations Security Council, is a founding and leading member of the NATO military alliance, is party to the Five Power Defence Arrangements. Overseas garrisons and facilities are maintained at Ascension Island, Belize, British Indian Ocean Territory, Canada, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Qatar and the United States. With the Acts of Union 1707, the armed forces of England and Scotland were merged into the armed forces of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
During the half of the seventeenth century, in particular, throughout the eighteenth century, British foreign policy sought to contain the expansion of rival European powers through military and commercial means – of its chief competitors. This saw Britain engage in a number of intense conflicts over colonial possessions and world trade, including a long string of Anglo-Spanish and Anglo-Dutch wars, as well as a series of "world wars" with France, such as. During the Napoleonic wars, the Royal Navy victory at Trafalgar under the command of Horatio Nelson marked the culmination of British maritime supremacy, left the Navy in a position of uncontested hegemony at sea. By 1815 and the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain had risen to become the world's dominant great power and the British Empire subsequently presided over a period of relative peace, known as Pax Britannica. With Britain's old rivals no-longer a threat, the nineteenth century saw the emergence of a new rival, the Russian Empire, a strategic competition in what became known as The Great Game for supremacy in Central Asia.
Britain feared that Russian expansionism in the region would threaten the Empire in India. In response, Britain undertook a number of pre-emptive actions against perceived Russian ambitions, including the First Anglo-Afghan War, the Second Anglo-Afghan War and the British expedition to Tibet. During this period, Britain sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe against Russian expansionism, who at the expense of the waning Ottoman Empire had ambitions to "carve up the European part of Turkey"; this led to British involvement in the Crimean War against the Russian Empire. The beginning of the twentieth century served to reduce tensions between Britain and the Russian Empire due to the emergence of a unified German Empire; the era brought about an Anglo-German naval arms race which encouraged significant advancements in maritime technology, in 1906, Britain had determined that its only naval enemy was Germany. The accumulated tensions in European relations broke out into the hostilities of the First World War, in what is recognised today, as the most devastating war in British military history, with nearly 800,000 men killed and over 2 million wounded.
Allied victory resulted in the defeat of the Central Powers, the end of the German Empire, the Treaty of Versailles and the establishment of the League of Nations. Although Germany had been defeated during the First World War, by 1933 fascism had given rise to Nazi Germany, which under the leadership of Adolf Hitler re-militarised in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. Once again tensions accumulated in European relations, following Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Second World War began; the conflict was the most widespread in British history, with British Empire and Commonwealth troops fighting in campaigns from Europe and North Africa, to the Middle East and the Far East. 390,000 British Empire and Commonwealth troops lost their lives. Allied victory resulted in the defeat of the Axis powers and the
Trinity College Library
The Library of Trinity College Dublin serves Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is a legal deposit or "copyright library", which means that publishers in Ireland must deposit a copy of all their publications there, free of charge, it is the only Irish library to hold such rights for the United Kingdom. The Library is the permanent home to the Brian Boru harp, a national symbol of Ireland, a copy of 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, the Book of Kells. Two of the four volumes of the Book of Kells are on public display, one opened to a major decorated page and the other to a typical page of text; the volumes and pages shown are changed. Members of the University of Dublin have access to the libraries of Tallaght Hospital and the Irish School of Ecumenics, Milltown; the Library proper occupies several buildings, six of which are at the Trinity College campus itself, with another part of the Trinity Centre at St James's Hospital, Dublin: The oldest library building, now known as the Old Library, is Thomas Burgh’s magnum opus.
Construction began in 1712. A large building which took twenty years to complete in its original form, it towered over the university and city after its completion in 1732. Today, surrounded by scaled buildings, it is imposing and dominates the view of the university from Nassau Street; the Book of Kells is located in the Old Library, along with the Book of Durrow, the Book of Howth and other ancient texts. Incorporating the Long Room, the Old Library is one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions, holds thousands of rare, in many cases early, volumes. In the 18th century, the college received the Brian Boru harp, one of the three surviving medieval Gaelic harps, a national symbol of Ireland, now housed in the Library. Housed within the Old Library are: Special Collections. Manuscripts & Archives; the Berkeley/Lecky/Ussher Libraries complex, incorporating: The Berkeley Library, in Fellows' Square. Designed by Paul Koralek of ABK Architects, an imposing Brutalist structure opened in 1967; the Lecky Library, attached to the Arts Building.
Designed by ABK opened in 1978. The Ussher Library, overlooking College Park. Designed by McCullough Mulvin Architects opened in 2003; the Glucksman Map Library. The Preservation and Conservation Department; the Hamilton Science and Engineering Library, located within the Hamilton Building. The 1937 Reading Room; the John Stearne Medical Library, housed at St James's Hospital. Further materials are held in storage in Stacks, either in closed access within College or at a book depository in the Dublin suburb of Santry; the Library began with the founding of Trinity College in 1592. In 1661, Henry Jones presented it with the Book of its most famous manuscript. James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, whose most important works were "Veterum Epistolarum Hibernicarum Sylloge" and "Brittanicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates", left his valuable library, comprising several thousand printed books and manuscripts, to the Library, his complete works were published by the Library in twenty-four volumes. In 1801, the Library was given legal deposit rights, making it the only library in Ireland to have such rights for the United Kingdom at that time.
According to the Republic of Ireland's Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, the Library is entitled, along with the National Library of Ireland and the libraries of the National University of Ireland, the University of Limerick, Dublin City University, to receive a copy of all works published in the Republic of Ireland. As a result of the British Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, which continues a more ancient right dating from 1801, the Library is entitled, along with the British Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, Cambridge University Library, the National Library of Wales and the National Library of Scotland, to receive a copy on request of all works published in the United Kingdom. Many works are now being received electronically rather than in print under new UK regulations which came into force in April 2013; the 65-metre-long main chamber of the Old Library, the Long Room, was built between 1712 and 1732 and houses 200,000 of the Library's oldest books. The Long Room had a flat ceiling, shelving for books only on the lower level, an open gallery.
By the 1850s the room had to be expanded as the shelves were filled due to the fact that the Library had been given permission to obtain a free copy of every book, published in Ireland and Britain. In 1860, The Long Room's roof was raised to accommodate an upper gallery; the Long Room is lined with marble busts. The marble bust collection was formed when 14 busts from the sculptor Peter Scheemakers were acquired by the college. Many of the busts are of great philosophers and men who supported the college; the most outstanding bust in the collection is of the writer Jonathan Swift, created by Louis François Roubiliac. The Long Room holds one of the last remaining copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic; this proclamation was read by Patrick Pearse near the General Post Office on 24 April 1916. Visitors may view the Trinity College harp in the Long Room, the oldest of its kind in Ireland dating back to the 15th century; the harp includes 29 brass strings. The Jedi archives of the Jedi Temple in the movie Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones bear a startling resemblance to the Long Room of the Trinity College Library.
This resemblance resulted in controversy as permission had not been sought to use the building's likeness in the film. How
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty known as The Treaty and the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence. It provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State within a year as a self-governing dominion within the "community of nations known as the British Empire", a status "the same as that of the Dominion of Canada", it provided Northern Ireland, created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State, which it exercised. The agreement was signed in London on 6 December 1921, by representatives of the British government and by representatives of the Irish Republic including Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith; the Irish representatives had plenipotentiary status acting on behalf of the Irish Republic, though the British government declined to recognise that status.
As required by its terms, the agreement was approved by "a meeting" of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and by the British Parliament. In reality, Dáil Éireann first debated approved the treaty. Though the treaty was narrowly approved, the split led to the Irish Civil War, won by the pro-treaty side; the Irish Free State as contemplated by the treaty came into existence when its constitution became law on 6 December 1922 by a royal proclamation. Among the treaty's main clauses were that: Crown forces would withdraw from most of Ireland. Ireland was to become a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, a status shared by Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa; as with the other dominions, the King would be the Head of State of the Irish Free State and would be represented by a Governor General. Members of the new free state's parliament would be required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State. A secondary part of the oath was to "be faithful to His Majesty King George V, His heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship".
Northern Ireland would have the option of withdrawing from the Irish Free State within one month of the Treaty coming into effect. If Northern Ireland chose to withdraw, a Boundary Commission would be constituted to draw the boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Britain, for its own security, would continue to control a limited number of ports, known as the Treaty Ports, for the Royal Navy; the Irish Free State would assume responsibility for a proportionate part of the United Kingdom's debt, as it stood on the date of signature. The treaty would have superior status in Irish law, i.e. in the event of a conflict between it and the new 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State, the treaty would take precedence. The negotiators included: Providing Secretarial AssistanceRobert Barton was the last surviving signatory, he died on 10 August 1975 at the age of 94. Notably, the President of the Irish Republic Éamon de Valera did not attend. Winston Churchill held two different roles in the British cabinet during the process of Irish independence: until February 1921 he had been Secretary of State for War hoping to end the Irish War of Independence.
Erskine Childers, the author of the Riddle of the Sands and former Clerk of the British House of Commons, served as one of the secretaries of the Irish delegation. Tom Jones was one of Lloyd George's principal assistants, described the negotiations in his book Whitehall Diary. Éamon de Valera sent the Irish plenipotentiaries to the 1921 negotiations in London with several draft treaties and secret instructions from his cabinet. Pointedly the British side never asked to see their formal accreditation with the full status of plenipotentiaries, but considered that it had invited them as elected MPs: "...to ascertain how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire can best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations". This invitation in August had been delayed for over a month by a correspondence in which de Valera argued that Britain was now negotiating with a sovereign state, a position Lloyd George continually denied. In the meantime, de Valera had been elevated to President of the Republic on 26 August to be able to accredit plenipotentiaries for the negotiations, as is usual between sovereign states.
On 14 September all the Dáil speakers unanimously commented that the plenipotentiaries were being sent to represent the sovereign Irish Republic, accepted de Valera's nominations without dissent, although some argued that de Valera himself should attend the conference. On 18 September Lloyd George recalled that: From the outset of our conversations I told you that we looked to Ireland to own allegiance to the Throne, to make her future as a member of the British Commonwealth; that was the basis of our proposals, we cannot alter it. The status which you now claim in advance for your delegates is, in effect, a repudiation of that basis. I am prepared to meet your delegates as I met you in July, in the capacity of'chosen spokesmen' for yo
General Post Office, Dublin
The General Post Office in Dublin is the headquarters of An Post, the Irish Post Office, Dublin's principal post office. Sited in the centre of O'Connell Street, the city's main thoroughfare, it is one of Ireland's most famous buildings, was the last of the great Georgian public buildings erected in the capital; the foundation-stone of the building, designed by Francis Johnston, was laid by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Charles Whitworth, 1st Earl Whitworth, on 12 August 1814, attended by the Post-Masters-General, Charles O'Neill, 1st Earl O'Neill and Laurence Parsons, 2nd Earl of Rosse. The structure was completed in the short space of three years at a cost of between £50,000 and £80,000; the front, which extends 67.1 metres, has an Ionic portico, of six fluted Ionic columns, 137.16 centimetres in diameter. The frieze of the entablature is enriched, in the tympanum of the pediment were the royal arms until removed following restoration in the 1920s. On the acroteria of the pediment are three statues by John Smyth: when facing the building Mercury on the left, with his Caduceus and purse.
The entablature, with the exception of the architrave, is continued along the rest of the front. A balustrade surmounts the cornice of the building, 15.2 metres from the ground. With the exception of the portico, of Portland stone, the main building is of mountain granite; the elevation has three stories, of which basement is rusticated. The portico occupies the entire height of the structure; the General Post Office in Ireland was first located in High Street in Dublin moving to Fishamble Street in 1689, to Sycamore Alley in 1709 and in 1755 to Bardin's Chocolate House on the site where the Commercial Buildings used to be off Dame Street. It was afterwards removed to a larger house opposite the Bank of Ireland building on College Green. On 6 January 1818, the new post-office in Sackville Street was opened for business. During the Easter Rising of 1916, the GPO served as the headquarters of the uprising's leaders, it was from outside this building on the 24th of April 1916, that Patrick Pearse read out the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
The building was destroyed by fire in the course of the rebellion, save for the granite facade, not rebuilt until 1929, by the Irish Free State government. An original copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was displayed in the museum at the GPO; the museum was closed at the end of May 2015 and replaced by a new visitor centre to commemorate the 1916 Rising,'GPO Witness History', in March 2016. The building has remained a symbol of Irish nationalism. In commemoration of the Rising, a statue depicting the death of the mythical hero Cúchulainn sculpted by Oliver Sheppard in 1911 was sited at the command post in the centre of the GPO main hall and is now housed in the front of the building; the statue was featured on the Irish ten shilling coin of 1966, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising. Despite its fame as an iconic place of Irish freedom, ground rent for the GPO continued to be paid to English and American landlords until the 1980s; the broadcasting studios of 2RN, which became Radio Éireann, were located at the GPO from 1928 until 1974.
Draws for Prize Bonds are held weekly, in the building. Nelson's Pillar was located in the centre of O'Connell Street adjacent to the GPO, until it was destroyed by Irish republicans in an explosion in 1966; the Spire of Dublin was erected on the site of the Pillar in 2003. An Post History and Heritage – The GPO Museum The 1916 Rising by Norman Teeling a ten-painting suite of events of the Easter Rising acquired for permanent display at the GPO
Granite
Granite is a common type of felsic intrusive igneous rock, granular and phaneritic in texture. Granites can be predominantly white, pink, or gray depending on their mineralogy; the word "granite" comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a holocrystalline rock. Speaking, granite is an igneous rock with between 20% and 60% quartz by volume, at least 35% of the total feldspar consisting of alkali feldspar, although the term "granite" is used to refer to a wider range of coarse-grained igneous rocks containing quartz and feldspar; the term "granitic" means granite-like and is applied to granite and a group of intrusive igneous rocks with similar textures and slight variations in composition and origin. These rocks consist of feldspar, quartz and amphibole minerals, which form an interlocking, somewhat equigranular matrix of feldspar and quartz with scattered darker biotite mica and amphibole peppering the lighter color minerals; some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic.
A granitic rock with a porphyritic texture is known as a granite porphyry. Granitoid is a descriptive field term for lighter-colored, coarse-grained igneous rocks. Petrographic examination is required for identification of specific types of granitoids; the extrusive igneous rock equivalent of granite is rhyolite. Granite is nearly always massive and tough; these properties have made granite a widespread construction stone throughout human history. The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength lies above 200 MPa, its viscosity near STP is 3–6·1019 Pa·s. The melting temperature of dry granite at ambient pressure is 1215–1260 °C. Granite has poor primary permeability overall, but strong secondary permeability through cracks and fractures if they are present. Granite is classified according to the QAPF diagram for coarse grained plutonic rocks and is named according to the percentage of quartz, alkali feldspar and plagioclase feldspar on the A-Q-P half of the diagram.
True granite contains both alkali feldspars. When a granitoid is devoid or nearly devoid of plagioclase, the rock is referred to as alkali feldspar granite; when a granitoid contains less than 10% orthoclase, it is called tonalite. A granite containing both muscovite and biotite micas is called two-mica granite. Two-mica granites are high in potassium and low in plagioclase, are S-type granites or A-type granites. A worldwide average of the chemical composition of granite, by weight percent, based on 2485 analyses: Granite containing rock is distributed throughout the continental crust. Much of it was intruded during the Precambrian age. Outcrops of granite tend to form rounded massifs. Granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite occurs as small, less than 100 km2 stock masses and in batholiths that are associated with orogenic mountain ranges. Small dikes of granitic composition called aplites are associated with the margins of granitic intrusions.
In some locations coarse-grained pegmatite masses occur with granite. Granite is more common in continental crust than in oceanic crust, they are crystallized from felsic melts which are less dense than mafic rocks and thus tend to ascend toward the surface. In contrast, mafic rocks, either basalts or gabbros, once metamorphosed at eclogite facies, tend to sink into the mantle beneath the Moho. Granitoids have crystallized from felsic magmas that have compositions near a eutectic point. Magmas are composed of minerals in variable abundances. Traditionally, magmatic minerals are crystallized from the melts that have separated from their parental rocks and thus are evolved because of igneous differentiation. If a granite has a cooling process, it has the potential to form larger crystals. There are peritectic and residual minerals in granitic magmas. Peritectic minerals are generated through peritectic reactions, whereas residual minerals are inherited from parental rocks. In either case, magmas will evolve to the eutectic for crystallization upon cooling.
Anatectic melts are produced by peritectic reactions, but they are much less evolved than magmatic melts because they have not separated from their parental rocks. The composition of anatectic melts may change toward the magmatic melts through high-degree fractional crystallization. Fractional crystallisation serves to reduce a melt in iron, titanium and sodium, enrich the melt in potassium and silicon – alkali feldspar and quartz, are two of the defining constituents of granite; this process operates regardless of the origin of parental magmas to granites, regardless of their chemistry. The composition and origin of any magma that differentiates into granite leave certain petrological evidence as to what the granite's parental rock was; the final texture and composition of a granite are distinctive as to its parental rock. For instance, a granite, derived from partial melting of meta
Irish War of Independence
The Irish War of Independence or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary and its paramilitary forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary. It was an escalation of the Irish revolutionary period into warfare. In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Although it was crushed after a week of fighting, the Easter Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish independence. In the December 1918 election, the republican party Sinn Féin won a landslide victory in Ireland. On 21 January 1919 they declared Irish independence; that day, two RIC officers were shot dead in the Soloheadbeg ambush by IRA volunteers acting on their own initiative. The conflict developed gradually. For much of 1919, IRA activity involved capturing weaponry and freeing republican prisoners, while the Dáil set about building a state.
In September, the British government outlawed the conflict intensified. The IRA began ambushing RIC and British Army patrols, attacking their barracks and forcing isolated barracks to be abandoned; the British government bolstered the RIC with recruits from Britain—the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for ill-discipline and reprisal attacks on civilians, some of which were authorized by the British government. Thus the conflict is sometimes called the Tan War; the conflict involved civil disobedience, notably the refusal of Irish railwaymen to transport British forces or military supplies. In mid-1920, republicans won control of most county councils, British authority collapsed in most of the south and west, forcing the British government to introduce emergency powers. About 300 people had been killed by late 1920. On Bloody Sunday in Dublin, 21 November 1920, fourteen British intelligence operatives were assassinated in the morning. A week seventeen Auxiliaries were killed by the IRA in the Kilmichael Ambush in County Cork.
The British government declared martial law in much of southern Ireland. The centre of Cork city was burnt out by British forces in December 1920. Violence continued to escalate over the next seven months, when 1,000 people were killed and 4,500 republicans were interned. Much of the fighting took place in Munster and Belfast, which together saw over 75 percent of the conflict deaths; the conflict in north-east Ulster had a sectarian aspect. While the Catholic minority there backed Irish independence, the Protestant majority were unionist/loyalist. A Special Constabulary was formed, made up of Protestants, loyalist paramilitaries were active, they attacked Catholics in reprisal for IRA actions, in Belfast a sectarian conflict raged in which 500 were killed, most of them Catholics. In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act, which created Northern Ireland. Both sides agreed to a ceasefire on 11 July 1921; the post-ceasefire talks led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921.
This ended British rule in most of Ireland and, after a ten-month transitional period overseen by a provisional government, the Irish Free State was created as a self-governing Dominion on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland remained within the United Kingdom. After the ceasefire, violence in Belfast and fighting in border areas of Northern Ireland continued, the IRA launched a failed Northern offensive in May 1922. In June 1922, disagreement among republicans over the Anglo-Irish Treaty led to the ten-month Irish Civil War; the Irish Free State awarded 62,868 medals for service during the War of Independence, of which 15,224 were issued to IRA fighters of the flying columns. Since the 1880s, Irish nationalists in the Irish Parliamentary Party had been demanding Home Rule, or self-government, from Britain. Fringe organisations, such as Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin, instead argued for some form of Irish independence, but they were in a small minority; the demand for Home Rule was granted by the British Government in 1912 prompting a prolonged crisis within the United Kingdom as Ulster unionists formed an armed organisation – the Ulster Volunteers – to resist this measure of devolution, at least in territory they could control.
In turn, nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers. The British Parliament passed the Third Home Rule Act on 18 September 1914 with an amending Bill for the partition of Ireland introduced by Ulster Unionist MPs, but the Act's implementation was postponed by the Suspensory Act 1914 due to the outbreak of the First World War in the previous month; the majority of nationalists followed their IPP leaders and John Redmond's call to support Britain and the Allied war effort in Irish regiments of the New British Army, the intention being to ensure the commencement of Home Rule after the war. But a significant minority of the Irish Volunteers opposed Ireland's involvement in the war; the Volunteer movement split, a majority leaving to form the National Volunteers under Redmond. The remaining Irish Volunteers, under Eoin MacNeill, held that they would maintain their organisation until Home Rule had been granted. Within this Volunteer movement, another faction, led by the separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood, began to prepare for a revolt a
Irish Army
