Sir, —Rory O’Dwyer gives an interesting account of the EucharisticCongress of 1932 (HI 15.6, Nov./Dec. 2007). I am rather disappointed,though in no way surprised, given the nexus of interconnected interestsbetween the almost permanent government of Fianna Fáil and all strandsof Irish society, that he does not mention W. T. Cosgrave or theprevious Cumann na nGaedheal … Read more
Sir, —Like Ian Chapple (‘Gaelic gripes’, Letters, HI 15.6, Nov./Dec.2007), ‘usually I read your magazine from cover to cover withenthusiasm and interest’. I fell on your excellent issue on Imeacht nanIarlaí/Flight of the Earls with extra interest. Although I was broughtup as ‘a monoglot Anglophone’, as Ian Chapple describes himself, unlikehim I did not find … Read more
Sir, —I enjoy your magazine very much. It’s always full of good readingand interesting articles. However, it can also be infuriating (notnecessarily a bad thing from an editorial point of view). I’d like topoint out a few irritants from the two most recent issues. What are extremely lengthy—four pages in all—reviews of Long Day’sJourney into … Read more
Sir, —Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, in her account of the trials of sportswomen in mid-twentieth-century Ireland (‘Internal tamponage, hockey parturition and mixed athletics’, HI 15.6, Nov./Dec. 2007), ridicules the opinions of the late John Charles McQuaid, Catholic archbishop of Dublin, and of Dr Stafford Johnson on the subject of menstrual tampons. Dr McQuaid in particular seems … Read more
Crimes of loyalty: a history of the UDA Ian S. Wood (Edinburgh University Press, £15.99) ISBN 9780748624270 Lord, oh lord, what a depressing book! Militant loyalism is one of the truly awful traditions that has blighted this island, and Ian Wood’s history of the Ulster Defence Association illustrates that point in almost all of its … Read more