Sir, —It is unfortunate that Paul Bew’s article in the last issue (HI17.4, July/Aug. 2009) should be entitled ‘The Blind Leading the Blind’.In it he says that, unlike Bernadette Devlin, he ‘did not see anydelighted policemen’ at Burntollet where he was present in January1969. Everyone else who was there did. In the account published … Read more
Sir, —As a student of history and as someone forced out of my childhood home in North Howard Street during the 1969 pogroms, I came away from reading your special issue (HI 17.4, July/Aug. 2009) with mixed feelings. While I welcome the editor’s forthright editorial (‘When is a pogrom not a pogrom?’) and his warning … Read more
Famine: a short history Cormac Ó Gráda (Princeton, $27.95) ISBN 9780691122373 Some time ago, before I went to Tanzania, I asked a class of adults who had returned to education whether they thought that the Great Irish Famine contributed to a particular empathy with the plight of Africa in Ireland. Spontaneously, they replied that … Read more
Bulmer Hobson and the nationalist movement in twentieth-century Ireland Marnie Hay (Manchester University Press, £55) ISBN 9780719079870 Marnie Hay begins her study of Bulmer Hobson (1883–1969) by claiming him to be one of ‘the losers of Irish history’. Despite Hobson’s tireless work as a republican propagandist and as a grassroots organiser for the IRB … Read more
The Fenian problem: insurgency and terrorism in a liberal state Brian Jenkins (Liverpool University Press, £65) ISBN 9781846311758 Some contemporary writers on terrorism argue that the British government’s response to Fenianism set a pattern of moral panic and the repression of civil liberties that has characterised state responses to such challenges down to the … Read more