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
US Military in Ireland Centenary Project. By Damian Shiels When Commander Joseph Taussig and his destroyers arrived in Cork Harbour on 4 May 1917, they represented the vanguard of a major American military effort that would ultimately see thousands of US naval personnel based in Ireland. For the next two years these Yank ‘Jack Tars’ … Read more
BY AODHÁN CREALEY JULY 16/1923 The Censorship of Films Act—‘to protect the citizens of the State from any films considered to be indecent, obscene, or blasphemous … or subversive of public morality’—was passed by Dáil Éireann after a lively debate. Typical of the contributions was that of William Magennis TD, who told the House that … Read more