Sir, —The errors in Tony Canavan’s piece on the vandalised painting at Stormont (‘A papist painting for a Protestant parliament?’, HI 16.1, Jan./Feb. 2008) lead me to wonder whether he really researched the topic or rather acquired his information at second or third hand. The man who attacked the painting was Charles Forrester, not ‘Forster’. … Read more
Sir, —I think that Dr Hanley in his critique of the ‘Killings at Coolacrease’ programme protests too much when he writes that talk of ‘ethnic cleansing . . . should be banished from any serious discussions’ on what happened in Ireland in the 1920s. Some communities in the twentieth century leave their homeland when they … Read more
In the early twentieth century Ramsay MacDonald bestrode the fledgling British Labour Party like a colossus. In 1900 he became secretary of the newly founded Labour Representation Committee; in 1906 he was first elected as a Labour MP; over the following years he served as treasurer, chairman and secretary of the new Labour Party; and he was … Read more
Sir,—A small correction to the article by Conor McNamara on British cabinet papers on-line (HI 20.2, March/April 2012, pp 40–1). Sir Rosslyn Wemyss was first sea lord, as stated, from December 1917 until the end of the war. He was not, however, commander-in-chief on the coast of Ireland. That position was held by Sir Lewis … Read more
A Chara, —The last sentence of Michael Gibbons’s review of Dublin NaziNo. 1: the life of Adolf Mahr (HI 15.5, Sept./Oct. 2007) was notsupported by a reading of the book. Neither author nor reviewer gaveany reason to think that Mahr ‘failed . . . as a man’ (whatever thatmeans?). But as one who worked in … Read more