Nick Maxwell By Jonathan Stearn Try to walk along the coast in Devlin near Louisburgh, Co. Mayo, and you’ll be confronted by barbed wire and signs warning you to keep out. Try the Cliffs of Moher in County Clare and you’ll find parts of the way barred, despite the public purse funding a coastal trail. Back in … Read more
Sir,—I am writing to request assistance from History Ireland readers in tracking down a significant collection of historical artefacts connected to the Irish cultural revival. Specifically, I am researching ceremonial banners that were gifted by Francis Joseph Bigger MRIA (1863–1926) to various Irish piping clubs during the formative years of these organisations. Francis Joseph Bigger … Read more
Sir,—Brian Hanley (HI 33.3, May/June 2025, Letters) construed an editorial response to Zionist defenders of the Gaza genocide who were critical of Michael D. Higgins as an ‘attempt to whitewash anti-Semitism here in the past’. That characterisation is as much mistaken as it is surprising. Brian’s extended homily on anti-Semitism and ‘the complexities of our … Read more
Sir,—‘On this day’ (HI 33.4, July/August 2025, p. 7) mentions the film director Rex Ingram (Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock). His father suffered what must be the most dreaded experience for authors. Revd Francis Ryan Montgomery Hitchcock (1867–1951) was a Church of Ireland rector at Kinnitty in the then King’s County. He had also established himself … Read more
Sir,—Your brief mention of the song ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye’ (HI 33.4, July/August 2025, Bite-sized History, p. 10), caught my attention. It is, and has been, constantly thought of and written about as a quintessentially Irish song and as an early example of an anti-war song. Both of these assumptions are mistaken. The song … Read more