Nick Maxwell The Observer and the Irish Independent reported (2 January 2005) that an anonymous group claimed responsibility for vandalising the statue of IRA leader Seán Russell in Fairview Park, Dublin. It said that as Europe prepares to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, it could no longer tolerate a statue … Read more
Sir, —In Colonel J.P. Duggan’s review of my recent Ireland, Germany and the Nazis 1919–1939 (HI 12.3, Autumn 2004) he courteously suggests that it is a ‘positive contribution’. Nonetheless the review is curious: he reviews a book I might consider writing on Ireland, Germany and the Second World War in the future rather than the … Read more
A chara —I am writing to highlight some discrepancies in Sinead ní Shuinéar’s article, ‘Apocrypha to canon: inventing Irish Traveller history’, in the last (Winter 2004) issue. Ní Shuinéar points to the lack of research in the area of the history of Irish Travellers but is evidently unaware of recent developments in the field. With … Read more
Sir—David Fitzpatrick’s article in the Summer 2002 issue (HI 10.2), ‘De Valera’s Performance as a Convict 1916–17’, is valuable as an examination of some important documents relating to the development of twentieth-century Irish history, but is nevertheless open to criticism on several points. The title, which accepts the English designation of the Irish prisoners as … Read more
Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia and the Communist Internationals 1919–43 Emmet O’Connor (UCD Press, €25) ISBN 1904558208With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the archives of the Communist International (Comintern), comprising some 55 million pages of documents, long closed to all but a very few trusted scholars, were finally opened to all. … Read more