Minding our language I am grateful to Ian Chapple (‘Letters’, opposite page) for giving me the opportunity to clarify our policy on submissions in the Irish language. The publication of two articles (‘Anocht is Uaigneach Éire’ [‘Ireland is Desolate Tonight’] by Breandán Ó Buachalla and ‘Cuntas Thaidhg Uí Chaináin at Thuras Deoraíochta na dTaoiseach Ultach, … Read more
Sir, —In the July/August 2007 issue of History Ireland (Flight of theEarls special) Prof. John McGurk, who in an earlier issue of yourjournal had drawn freely on my Kinsale for his account of the battle(HI 9.3, Autumn 2001), either was unaware of my chapter, ‘Outward boundfrom Portnamurray’, in E. García Hernán et al. (eds), Irlanda … Read more
Sir, —There is no doubt that Mr Pat Cooke is keen to court controversywith his pseudo-philosophical deconstruction of Tara and its landscapein his ‘platform’ piece, ‘Plato’s landscape: the quarrel over Lismullenand the Tara/Skryne valley’ (HI 15.5, Sept./Oct. 2007). Fewcommentators would be foolhardy enough to seriously dismiss thenational significance of Tara’s landscape on the basis of … Read more
Sir, —Usually I read your magazine from cover to cover with enthusiasm and interest. However, the issue for July/August 2007 (Flight of the Earls ‘special’) contained two articles completely incomprehensible to me (pp 32–6, 52–5). I hope that these two articles do not create a precedent. As a monoglot anglophone I shall have to reassess … Read more
Ireland: the politics of enmity 1789–2006 Paul Bew (Oxford University Press, £35) ISBN 9780198205555 According to the preface, this book ‘is about the conflict between the Protestant British—both on the British “mainland” and in Ireland itself—and the Catholic Irish’, from the 1800 Act of Union to the 2006 St Andrews Agreement. The various attempts by … Read more