‘Oh here’s to Adolph Hitler, Who made the Britons squeal, Sure before the fight is ended They will dance an Irish reel.’ (War News, 21 November 1940) Seán Russell, the IRA chief of staff, spent the summer of 1940 in a ‘very large’ villa in the leafy Grunewald, near Berlin, surrounded by extensive grounds and … Read more
As in other parts of the British Isles, ball games were a popular form of recreation in Ireland long before the modern versions of the games that became soccer and rugby were refined by English public schools during the nineteenth century and had their rules of play standardised by the Football Association (in 1863) and … Read more
Sir, —Your January/February 2005 issue provided food for thought. ‘Shotat Dawn’ by Peter Mulvany established that, when it came to militarydiscipline in the Great War, there were ‘different spanks for differentranks’. The ‘Londonderry Herr’ by Neil Fleming recalled the NaziRibbentrop’s frolics at Mountstewart with the marquess of Londonderry,ex-British air minister, ex-Stormont education minister, ex-Carsonite‘rebel’. In … Read more
Sir, —W.J. Lowe’s ‘Who were the Black-and-Tans?’ (HI 12.3, Autumn 2004) is—like all his work on Irish police history—solid, salutary and illuminating. His findings on the substantial Irish element among men who joined the RIC from the beginning of 1920 are particularly valuable. The ‘folk memory’ that assumed the Black-and-Tans and Auxiliaries (ADRIC) ‘to be … Read more
Sir, —Sinéad ní Shuinéar’s article ‘Apocrypha to canon: inventing Irish Traveller history’ (HI 12.4, Winter 2004) held a particular resonance for me. I am currently researching Irish Travellers and the criminal justice systems on the island of Ireland, north and south. Recently, in consideration of a theoretical framework with which to guide my Ph.D, I … Read more