Sir,—Tom Mahon’s article on the visit of Kerry’s football team to America in 1927 (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010) was of great interest. I note that the final paragraph suggests that it was only in 1933 that another Kerry tour was proposed when ‘Connie Neenan wrote to Moss Twomey’. However, Kerry’s Football Story (copy in the … Read more
Sir,—I read with great interest Angus Mitchell’s article on Sir John Lavery’s High Treason (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010). The key to the painting identifies the solemn man seated next to Casement in the dock simply as ‘Dowling’. Who is this man? Certainly this is not the same Dowling of Casement’s Irish Brigade who landed in … Read more
Sir,—I wish to respond to your comment on the Vatican in your last editorial (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010), beginning with the implicit criticism of it for being secular and institutional, and for exercising temporal powers. It is essential for it to be all three of those things, since it exists in the temporal world as … Read more
Sir,—In her article ‘A dynamic Irishman in Paris: Patrick d’Arcy, 1725–79’ (HI 18.2, March/April 2010), Mary Stratton Ryan quotes an 1845 article from the Freeman’s Journal to the effect that ‘A mason employed at the ancient chapel of St Philip du Roule has discovered a leaden coffin of ancient form [inscribed with the name of … Read more
Sir,—Niall Ó Dochartaigh’s excellent article (HI 18.5, Sept./Oct. 2010) reminds us that while the Saville Report is clear on the detail of what happened on Bloody Sunday it does not leave us much wiser about the reasons. Ó Dochartaigh emphasises General Ford’s plan to reverse the policy of restraint, which had previously been implemented by … Read more