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
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
Remember the furore a few years back when Minister for Education Mary Hanafin decreed that every school in the state receive, at taxpayers’ expense, a copy of the Royal Irish Academy’s Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter? (God be with the days when such largesse was flung around like snuff at a wake!) Would biographies of … Read more
History Man: the life of R. G. Collingwood Fred Inglis (Princeton University Press, Ä33.55) IBSN 9780691130149 Robin George Collingwood was born on 22 February 1889 in the English Lake District and died there on 9 January 1943. He wrote extensively on the philosophy of art, metaphysics, the nature of knowledge, archaeology and religion, but … Read more
Behind the Green Curtain: Ireland’s phoney neutrality during World War II T. Ryle Dwyer (Gill and Macmillan, €25) ISBN 9780717146383 The reasons for Irish neutrality during the Second World War are widely accepted: that any attempt to take an overtly pro-British line might have resulted in a replay of the Civil War; that Southern … Read more