Sir,—There are many good things in Ruan O’Donnell’s appraisal of my book Lone Crusader: David Thornley and the Intellectuals (reviews, HI 21.3, May/June 2013) and I know it appears churlish to draw attention to an error. David’s famous television broadcast in which, according to Jack Lynch, David swung popular feeling against the Fianna Fáil proposal … Read more
Sir,—Tadhg Moloney’s letter on tobacco-growing in Ireland (HI 21.3, May/June 2013) reminds me that, somewhere in my possession, I have a plain white ‘twenties’ box on which is printed in green ‘Cashel cigarettes’. In my youth I located this in a loft beside the avenue leading up to Cashel’s then deanery, once the palace of … Read more
Sir,—I write to register some disagreement with Daniel Downer’s article ‘Irish attitudes to slavery during the American Civil War’ (HI 21.3, May/June 2013). First, the argument is somewhat of a straw-man construction. No one has doubted that many, and probably most, Irish emigrants to the US in the Civil War era took an extreme white … Read more
Sir,—There are a number of small points that I would like to address in relation to the review of my book Dublin Fire Brigade and the Irish Revolution (HI 21.3, May/June 2013). Kevin Myers pointed out the lack of an index, an omission that is entirely mine. He also took me to task for ‘factual … Read more
<p?Sir,—In his article on the Book of Kells (HI 21.3, May/June 2013) Roger Stalley mentioned my suggestion ‘that the actual text of the book could have been written in as little as 60 days, assuming good weather and satisfactory working conditions’. This calculation, however, refers to the Book of Durrow and was published originally in … Read more