Volume 21

Sir,—David Fitzpatrick’s review (HI 21.5, Sept./Oct. 2013) of John Borgonovo’s Dynamics of War and Revolution: Cork City, 1916–18 devoted a paragraph to defending Peter Hart. The section contained a factual error: Hart’s The IRA and its Enemies (1998) did not assert that IRA commander Tom Barry engaged in ‘sectarianism’. It contained also a curiosity: Fitzpatrick … Read more

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