Traveller (non) history Recent events at Dunsink Lane, just outside Dublin, have put the issue of Travellers back in the news. In an attempt, they claimed, to clamp down on illegal activity (dumping, diesel-laundering, the handling of stolen goods, etc.), the local authorities, backed up by hundreds of Gardaí, many in riot gear, closed off … Read more
Sir, —The Autumn issue of History Ireland has just come through the letterbox and I happen to have opened it on Áine Maire Chadwick’s letter on White Sorrel, the white horse so famously associated with King Billy. As your correspondent points out, this was not the horse ridden by William at the Battle of … Read more
Sir, —In his response (HI 12.3, Autumn 2004) to my review of his Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (HI 12.2, Summer 2004), David Fitzpatrick states that he ‘could not afford the academic luxury of anodyne “impartiality” (as distinct from “multipartiality”)’, having made the tu quoque argument that ‘the reviewer who sets out to expose political prejudice … Read more
Sir, —In his article on Fr Edward Flanagan’s visit to Ireland in 1946 (HI 12.1, Spring 2004) Dr Dáire Keogh purported to re-examine the evidence relating to criticisms of children’s institutions made by the founder of Boys’ Town, USA. Dr Keogh’s key contention was that Fr Flanagan did not censure industrial schools, directly contradicting … Read more
Sir, —In his examiner’s report on my Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (HI 12.2, Summer 2004), Manus O’Riordan awards me ‘9 out of 10 as to balanced presentation of a voluminous amount of evidence’, but a miserable fail in applying my ‘declared aim of impartiality’ to the ‘accompanying commentary’. Though I declared no such aims in … Read more