Sir,—Fergus Whelan’s fascinating article on Cromwell and Irish republicanism (HI 18.6, Nov./Dec. 2010) brought to mind two interesting parallels between the Irish republicans of 1798 and the English republicans of a century and a half earlier. The Roundheads and Croppies both wore their hair short as a badge, and both Levellers and United Irishmen adopted … Read more
Sir,—My attention has been drawn to a Sidelines item (p. 6) in the last issue (HI 19.1, Jan./Feb. 2011), which contained a couple of inaccuracies that I’m sure you’d wish corrected. Although almost universally referred to as grave-robbers, William Burke and William Hare were in fact mass-murderers and never robbed a grave in their lives, … Read more
Becoming American under fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the politics of citizenship during the Civil War era Christian G. Samito (Cornell University Press, $39.95) ISBN 9780801448461 Just as on this side of the pond, in the United States the discourse of citizenship circulates in increasingly impoverished forms. The recent repackaging of republicanism via … Read more
Eighteenth-century Ireland: the isle of slaves Ian McBride New Gill History of Ireland 4 (Gill and Macmillan, Ä24) ISBN 9780717116270 There are many paths through the historical forest. Ian McBride’s is different from his predecessors’, and in particular from Edith Johnston’s in the original Gill series published in 1974. His synthesis of advances in … 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