After a break occasioned by our detour to Latin America in the last issue, Bookworm is back. It seems to be an iron rule of publishing that any book relating to the Second World War must have ‘Hitler’ in the title. The latest in the genre is Terence O’Reilly’s Hitler’s Irishmen (Mercier Press, 320pp, €16.99 … Read more
Sir,—Stephanie Rains’ excellent article on ‘The politics of “native” village exhibitions’ (HI 19.2, March/April 2011) prompted me to look again at some old Edwardian postcards that I inherited many years ago. Some, which I have reproduced elsewhere (‘Irish International Exhibition’, in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 137, pp 149–52), are … Read more
Sir,—I greatly enjoyed Éamonn Ó Ciardha’s article on Jacobite jailbreakers and jailbirds (HI 19.2, March/April 2011). However, one small point of Polish history needs correction. James (Jakub) Sobieski, the father of Princess Klementyna (Clementina), was never a king of Poland, so he could never have been an ‘exiled king’, like James Stuart. He was King … Read more
Sir,—As chairman of the Knockraha History and Heritage Society, I read with horror Gerard Murphy’s The year of disappearances: political killings in Cork 1920–1922 (reviewed in HI 19.1, Jan./Feb. 2011), which seeks to demonise the late Martin Corry TD for his role in the fight for Irish freedom. The author quotes my writings as a … Read more
Following the launch of this book in Dublin, a senior SDLP member advised the current reviewer that this would not be an easy read. What he meant was that it contained a lot of factual information that needed to be carefully deliberated on as the book was being read. The blurb on the back cover … Read more