Sir,—Can someone please clarify for me what point Ciaran Wallace is making about anti-corruption activity in Dublin (HI 21.5, Sept./Oct. 2013, ‘Early Sinn Féin—the anti-corruption party’)? The fight for freedom in our country leading up to the Treaty was concerned with the land of Ireland for the Irish. The city dwellers who had been exploited … Read more
Sir,—It’s nearly five years since the word ‘iconic’ made it onto the List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness. No matter; it continues to proliferate, so that any mildly prominent item is now awarded ‘iconic’ status. I counted over twenty instances in my reading last weekend. To my … Read more
Sir,—‘The morality of neutrality is in fact not the question’, Michael Kennedy asserts (HI 21.5, Sept./Oct. 2013, ‘Neutrality: “The very essence of Irish independence”?’). On the contrary, the German Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has described the Allied campaign to topple the Nazi regime as ‘perhaps the clearest example in all history of a just war’. … Read more
I am delighted to take this opportunity to reassure your readers about the place of history as a subject in the new Junior Certificate after 2017. History is one of the most popular subjects chosen by pupils studying for the Junior Cert. It will always be taught in second-level schools to students at junior and … Read more
In this ‘decade of centenaries’ Niamh Crowley marks the half-centenary of an organisation that has fostered an up-to-date approach to the teaching of history and which continues to campaign today for its retention as a core subject on the Junior Cert. The exact circumstances in which the first gathering of history teachers took place with … Read more