Sir,—In the last issue (HI 20.5, Sept./Oct. 2012) Professor David Fitzpatrick writes, ‘Dr Regan urges me … to unveil the identity and religious affiliation of those responsible for the Macroom or “Bandon Valley” massacre’. David Fitzpatrick misrepresents me. In the May–June issue Professor Fitzpatrick wrote: ‘The fact that names [of those responsible for the massacre] … Read more
Sir,—John A. Murphy’s remarks on Tomás Ruadh Ó Suilleabháin are, to put it politely, rather remote from truth. Nowhere in Ó Suilleabháin’s 1828 poem does he express the wish that Protestants be subject to ‘ethnic cleansing’. The poet, after alluding to Wolfe Tone’s failed 1796 Bantry Bay expedition, expresses the desire that the peasantry be … Read more
Sir,—I refer to Seán Kelleher’s letter (HI, Sept./Oct. 2012) about my chapter on Kilmichael in David Fitzpatrick’s (ed.) Terror in Ireland. Mr Kelleher argues that Jack Hennessy’s Bureau of Military History (BMH) statement contains an account of a false surrender by the Auxiliaries, while simultaneously asserting that such surrender caused the ‘fatal wounding of three … Read more
Sir,—May I point out an error in the article on counties, palatinates, boroughs and ridings in the last issue (HI 20.5, Sept./Oct. 2012)? County Clare (now Clarecastle), which was briefly named as the county town by Elizabethan administrators in the 1570s. This is attested to in the Annals of the Four Masters (James Frost, The history … Read more
Sir,—In view of its special attention to the Irish role in the American Civil War, there’s a curious omission in Kevin Haddick Flynn’s article (HI 20.5, Sept./Oct. 2012). It makes no mention of General Philip Sheridan, easily the most important Irish figure in the conflict, certainly a much bigger player than Thomas Francis Meagher, Michael … Read more