May 11 1971 Seán Lemass, revolutionary, founding member of Fianna Fáil (1926) and taoiseach (1959–66), died. 13 198 Peadar O’Donnell (93), revolutionary, agitator and novelist, died. 15 1910 The Association of United Irishwomen, renamed the Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) in 1934, which sought to provide rural women with a social outlet and … Read more
We in Ireland pride ourselves on the fact that our history ‘lives’, that the old and the new can often be found happily coexisting. On a fine October day in the Phoenix Park in 1991 there was an apparent demonstration of this rhyming of past and present. As a now fairly well-known photograph shows, then … Read more
In a magnanimous gesture to our nearest neighbours, having recently inflicted morale-sapping defeats in both rugby and cricket (once regarded as ‘foreign games’ in some quarters), the Irish government has invited Queen Elizabeth II to our shores. No doubt this will revive the old Gay Byrne joke of the 1980s, that if the queen of … Read more
Sir,—Stephanie Rains’ excellent article on ‘The politics of “native” village exhibitions’ (HI 19.2, March/April 2011) prompted me to look again at some old Edwardian postcards that I inherited many years ago. Some, which I have reproduced elsewhere (‘Irish International Exhibition’, in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 137, pp 149–52), are … Read more
Sir,—I greatly enjoyed Éamonn Ó Ciardha’s article on Jacobite jailbreakers and jailbirds (HI 19.2, March/April 2011). However, one small point of Polish history needs correction. James (Jakub) Sobieski, the father of Princess Klementyna (Clementina), was never a king of Poland, so he could never have been an ‘exiled king’, like James Stuart. He was King … Read more