Sir,—The purpose of this letter is to add some more facts to the article on Bloody Sunday 1920 by Tim Carey and Marcus de Burca (HI 11.2, Summer 2003). The following is an account of events that happened to my father on that day. My father was Charlie Murphy (b. 29 July 1900, d. 13 … Read more
Sir,—Pat Marshall’s interesting piece on Major Sirr in your last issue (HI 11.3, Autumn 2003) neglected one aspect of Sirr’s later career: his interest in the Irish language. (Viewers of Pat Murphy’s film Anne Devlin will recall that Sirr is the only major character who speaks Irish on-screen, when talking to an informer.) It extended … Read more
Sir,—Toby Joyce neatly describes (HI 11.2, Summer 2003) the battles of the famous draft riots of 1863, but he fails, I think, to deal candidly with the dynamics of the Irish scene in New York. The Irish working-class realised that many Americans regarded it as ‘papist scum’, one step below the ‘niggers’. Nevertheless the Democratic … Read more
Sir,—Congratulations on the Spring 2003 edition; I found it very interesting and liked the variety of the subjects. I was especially interested in D.R. O’Connor Lysaght’s article on Redmondism. I wonder if you can help identify the spectacle-wearing character in the cartoon from the Irish Worker. I think it might be Pierce O’Mahony. I would … Read more