Sir,—Pádraig Óg Ó Ruairc’s article (HI 25.3, May/June 2017) places emphasis on ‘the geography of IRA executions’ in the War of Independence, but he overlooks the more significant factor of their chronology. May I suggest that if he viewed each of these occurrences against the backdrop of political events nationally he would find that these … Read more
Sir,—In his review of my book (HI 25.3, May/June 2017) Emmet O’Connor compares my original Ph.D dissertation of 1984 with the new publication. If he had really read the original thesis he would have seen how much has been changed. It is essentially a new edition. Not only have recent publications on Connolly been considered, … Read more
Sir,—I have recently been researching the life of the theatre director Tomás Mac Anna for the Royal Irish Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography, and I came across something that may be of interest to the recent controversy over whether it was appropriate to display a banner with pictures of Henry Grattan, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart … Read more
Sir,—Your ‘Bite-sized History’ column (HI 25.3, May/June 2017) correctly notes that ‘echoes of the Know-Nothing Party’ of the mid-nineteenth century are heard again today in the United States. This sad recurring chapter is due primarily to the villainy of the man named Trump, whose executive orders and tweets resonate with the coded language of the … Read more