Sir,—I am glad to be in the position to let Niall Meehan and Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc (letters, HI, Nov./Dec. 2011) know that any errors—mostly minor transcriptional and/or typographical—that they found in the first edition of The Year of Disappearances have been corrected as part of the process of bringing out a second edition. Any other issues raised … Read more
Sir,—May I add afew words to W.H. Kautt’s review of William Sheehan’s A Hard Local War: the British Army and the guerilla war in Cork,1919-1921 (HI 19.4, July/August2011)? Sheehan refers to a book of mine, TheOrigins and Organisation of British Propaganda in Ireland, 1920, and claimsthat I make ‘sweeping claims’ such as ‘the British Army … Read more
Sir,—Fearghal McGarry’s article on the Bureau of Military History and Easter 1916 (HI 19.6, Nov./Dec. 2011) does not give credit to the first recorder of witness statements, Diarmuid Lynch. Repatriated from America to Ireland in 1932, Lynch began an active programme of contacting, interviewing and recording statements from all those of the GPO garrison who … Read more
This book promises to give the inside story of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division of the RIC, based on the official records. Unfortunately, over-reliance on those records provides a stilted and incomplete portrait of ‘the most notorious police force in the history of the British Isles’, instead of a historical roller-coaster. The records … Read more
The War of Independence in the northern counties would have an additional dimension to that in the rest of the island. Unionists had armed themselves in 1913 as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) to resist Home Rule ‘by all means’, and by 1920 had reorganised to combat increasing attacks by the IRA. UVF units were … Read more