Nick Maxwell It is deliciously ironic that a book that takes us to task for creating a ‘liberation myth’ with regard to the War of Independence should have on its front cover an image that is not what it claims to be (see letters, p. 12). Nevertheless, in spite of this and its rather old-fashioned revisionist tone, … Read more
Discover Your National Library National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street www.nli.ie, discover@nli.ie, +353 (0)1 6030277 by Tony Canavan Located in the old Kildare Street Club, which until recently housed the ‘Strangers to Citizens’ exhibition (and it is a pity that it could not be permanent), ‘Discover Your National Library’ is at once an attempt … Read more
Would you believe? The murder of Fr James Coyle in Birmingham, Alabama, 1921 21 March 2010, RTÉ 1 Rising Road: A true tale of love, race, and religion in America (Oxford University Press, New York, $27.95) ISBN 9780195379792 by John Gibney The Catholic priest James Coyle was born in Drum, Co. Roscommon, in 1873 … Read more
In the 1880s many, including Dr Thomas W. Croke, archbishop of Cashel, maintained that ‘ball-playing, hurling, football-kicking according to Irish rules . . . may now be said to be not only dead and buried, but in several localities to be entirely forgotten. What the country needed was an Irish organisation to bring order and … Read more
John Minahane has provided a clear and comprehensive translation of Disputatio Apologetica de jure Regni Hiberniae, which made the first full statement for Irish separatism. It was made after the 1641 rising, when a proto-national government, the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, was struggling for survival. This radical political endeavour was the work of Conor O’Mahony, … Read more