Nick Maxwell The Paris Olympics of 1924 represented the official debut of Ireland on the Olympic stage. Although Irish representatives competed in some of the artistic events that preceded the games proper (see Jack B. Yeats’s Liffey Swim, pp 26–7), the first sporting competitors for the new nation were sixteen footballers, culled from four clubs playing in … Read more
For Irish people the archetype of a fortified religious building is best encapsulated by the spectacular Augustinian priory at Kells, Co. Kilkenny (Pl. 1), the more ruinous but equally emotive remains of the Augustinian house at Athassel, Co. Tipperary, with its impressive defended gatehouse, or the dramatic fortified ruins of Lindisfarne priory on the Northumbrian … Read more
The first Irish census was taken in 1821, and thereafter censuses were taken at ten-yearly intervals until 1911. The only census records to survive in their entirety are those for 1901 and 1911. The records for 1821–51 were lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office at the beginning of the Civil War in … Read more
Sir, —I must protest at the treatment given to my book Redmond: theParnellite by your reviewer in the Sept./Oct. 2008 issue. My complaintrefers not to any unfavourable evaluation of the book but to theslipshod nature of the review. There are many indications that the reviewer has only a passingacquaintance with the period covered by the … Read more
Sir, —Over the past year several letter-writers have raised the issue of sectarianism and ethnic cleansing in the Irish Revolution and afterward, for instance Nick Foley (HI 16.3, May/June) and Clive Sinclair-Poulton (HI 16.2, March/April, and HI 16.5, Sept./Oct.). The blunt answer is that human nature does not change and the present is the key … Read more