Newspaper history conference - Belfast, Nov. 2019

The 2019 Newspaper and Periodical History Forum of Ireland (NPHFI) conference will take place in the Institute of Irish Studies in Queen's University, Belfast on Friday 8th and Friday 9th November 2019.

Speakers from universities in Ireland, UK, USA, India and Turkey will address the theme of 'The Press and Divided Societies'. The keynote address will be given by Andy Pollak, who has worked as a journalist, editor and writer.

Draft 2019 Conference poster.

The Tartan Pimpernel - An Irishman's Diary on Rev. Donald Caskie

Rev. Dr Donald Caskie helped to save the lives of over 2,000 Allied servicemen in France during the Second World War. I have just written an Irishman's Diary in today's Irish Times newspaper about him. Read it here.

Donald Caskie (1902-1983). Image source

Caskie was appointed as Minister in the Scots Kirk in Paris in the mid-1930s. He left the city when it was occupied by the Nazis in June 1940. He moved to Marseille and became part of an underground escape route that was organised by British intelligence.

They helped to hide stranded Allied servicemen and women and arrange their escape from France (usually over the Pyrenees to neutral Spain). He wrote about his wartime experiences in the book, The Tartan Pimpernel, which was published in 1957. It is a truly remarkable story of courage.