Nick Maxwell Lord Spencer, a former lord lieutenant and avid huntsman, invited Elizabeth, wife of the Emperor Franz Josef, to Ireland. Being keen on hunting, she willingly accepted and it was arranged that she should stay in Summerhill House, home of Lord Longford, in Kilcock, Co. Meath. As this was a private visit she used her minor … Read more
Sir, —In the lead photo (p. 22) of Michael Doorley’s article on ‘The Friends of Irish Freedom’ (HI 16.1, Jan./Feb. 2008), the figure to Dev’s immediate left is in fact Dr Patrick McCartan (and not FOIF secretary Diarmuid Lynch, as captioned). I should know—he was my godfather. —Yours etc., MAIRTÍN McCULLOUGH Blackrock Co. Dublin
Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) was a provincial German-speaking Baltic port and former member of the Hanseatic League that found itself plucked from obscurity immediately after the First World War. Elevated to the ambiguous status of a League-of-Nations-administered ‘free city’ and lying outside the borders of both Poland and Germany, the Free City of Danzig was, … Read more
Sir, —John Draper and Graham Walker discussed the sectarian ‘boast’ ofNorthern Ireland’s first prime minister, Sir James Craig, that hepresided over a Protestant ‘parliament’, ‘government’, ‘people’ and/or‘state’ (Letters, HI 16.2, March/April 2008). As neither identifiedoriginal sources, there was confusion as to what exactly was said. In a separate letter, D. R. O’Connor Lysaght noted that … Read more
Sir, —Contrary to your editorial (HI 16.1, Jan./Feb. 2008), the case ofthe Pearson killings was not a ‘truly hidden history’. Among otheraccounts, local historian Paddy Heaney detailed the killings in hisbook At the foot of the Slieve Bloom: history and folklore ofCadamstown, published in 2000. As Brian Hanley argues in his review,the evidence suggests that … Read more