Nick Maxwell Arthur Guinness’s youngest son, John, was commissioned as an army captain with the East India Company. He married Jane Lucretia, the widow of the John D’Esterre who was fatally wounded by Daniel O’Connell in their famous 1815 pistol duel. The eldest child of Captain John Grattan Guinness and Jane Lucretia was Henry Grattan Guinness, Harry’s … Read more
A chara,—Tony Canavan (HI 26.2, March/April 2018, Bite-sized History) poses a question which will become even more relevant over the next year or so—where and when did the War of Independence start? The claim that the armed action by Donegal Volunteers in freeing two republicans on 4 January 1918 signalled the start of the war … Read more
Sir,—Lar Joye and Donal McCracken (HI 26.1, Jan./Feb. 2018, ‘Artefacts’ and ‘Letters’) mention the flag that Inghinidhe na hÉireann sent to the Irish Transvaal Brigade during the Anglo-Boer War and which was recently conserved at Letterfrack for the National Museum. My understanding is that Major John MacBride undertook its transfer to Paris, where it was … Read more
Sir,—A ‘bemused’ Barry Keane (HI 26.2, March/April 2018, Letters) rejects a sectarian interpretation to the contested Bandon Valley killings of late April 1922. We would like to point readers to our 2014 article, ‘“Something in the nature of a massacre”: the Bandon Valley killings revisited’ (Éire-Ireland, Fall/Winter 2014, pp 7–59, assisted by James Donnelly Jr), … Read more
By Joe Culley In We bled together: Michael Collins, the Squad and the Dublin Brigade, Dominic Price collates much familiar material and, importantly, mines new sources to tell the story of Collins and his ‘Squad’ from before the War of Independence right through to the Civil War and beyond. This might be called a popular … Read more