Sir,—Tommy McKearney’s article on internment (HI 19.6, Nov./Dec. 2011) was interesting in that his own response was to join the Provisional IRA. But I fear that his background has led Mr McKearney to present an incomplete analysis in that he plays down the impact of republican violence up to August 1971. He rightly deals with … Read more
Sir,—I agree wholeheartedly with Elma Collins’s defence of the importance of history in the school curriculum (HI 91.6, Nov./Dec. 2011). However, I disagree just as strongly with one of her arguments as to why history teaching is important. Elma writes that ‘Nationalist myths went largely unexamined in the schools until the 1960s. We saw the … Read more
In 1873 Thomas Clarke (born on the Isle of Wight, 11 March 1857) travelled to Dublin to be sworn into the IRB. After being sworn in, he went north to Dungannon, but the police got on his track and he eventually left for America in 1880. In the United States he was further inculcated with … Read more
This book promises to give the inside story of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division of the RIC, based on the official records. Unfortunately, over-reliance on those records provides a stilted and incomplete portrait of ‘the most notorious police force in the history of the British Isles’, instead of a historical roller-coaster. The records … Read more
The focus of Edward Madigan’s book on the conduct of Anglican chaplains in the First World War is provided by something akin to a post-war literary consensus castigating army chaplains, and more specifically Church of England chaplains, for being ineffective at best, commanding little respect in the ranks, as having nothing more to offer than … Read more