Nick Maxwell Sir,—Your editorial in the last issue (HI 25.2, March/April 2017) touched on the new US Trump administration’s 90-day ban on people from seven (later reduced to six) Muslim-majority countries and on Ireland’s policy on asylum-seekers who wait years for a decision to remain or be deported. The US did relax the rules of the ban … Read more
Sir,—In his article ‘Edmund Dwyer Gray Jr in Tasmania’ (HI 25.2, March/April 2017), Felix M. Larkin made reference to his father, also Edmund Dwyer Gray, who was a very interesting man in his own right. Edmund Dwyer Gray was the son of Sir John Gray, proprietor of the Freeman’s Journal and MP for Kilkenny City. … Read more
Hedge schools Sir,—Tony Lyons (HI 24.6, Nov./Dec. 2016) provided us with a comprehensive account of hedge schools. The existence of these schools was in breach of the penal laws, which prohibited Catholic involvement in educational provision. As a result, they tended to be established in remote locations where they would not come to official attention. … Read more
1819 Birth of Gustave Courbet, French painter—notably of A Burial at Ornans (1850–1)—and pioneer of nineteenth-century realism. 1967 Spencer Treacy (67), acclaimed Hollywood actor who won consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor in Captains Courageous (1937) and Boy’s Town (1938), in which he played the role of Roscommon-born Father Edward J. Flanagan who founded the famous … Read more
1997 The Labour Party, led by Tony Blair, won the British general election by a landslide, ending eighteen years of Conservative rule. 1943 Sir Basil Brooke became prime minister of Northern Ireland in succession to John Miller Andrews.