Sir,—Though I question the oft-stated accusation that Arthur Griffith was anti-Semitic, D.R. O’Connor Lysaght appears initially almost magnanimous in his response to Colum Kenny’s letter (HI 24.6, Nov./Dec. 2016) on Arthur Griffith and anti-Semitism by saying that ‘it is possible, certainly, to accept that Griffith’s anti-Semitism diminished as he grew older’ (HI 25.1, Jan./Feb. 2017). … Read more
Making sense of the history of psychiatry in Ireland By Brendan Kelly The history of psychiatry is a history of therapeutic enthusiasm, with all of the triumph and tragedy, hubris and humility that such enthusiasm brings. In Ireland this history is dominated by the vast network of public asylums that commenced in earnest with the … Read more
Ulster’s forgotten Fenians, 1858–1867 By Kerron Ó Luain On the surface, the 1850s were barren years for those with Irish nationalist ideals. The Cookstown, Co. Tyrone, Fenian James Mullins wrote in later years that national sentiment ‘in those days, the fifties … was almost extinct in Ireland’. In Ulster, the Ribbon secret societies kept alive … Read more
Sir,—Rather than prolong the correspondence between myself and D.R. O’Connor Lysaght relating to my opinion that Arthur Griffith has been made a scapegoat for anti-Semitism in Ireland (argued in my article in HI 24.3, May/June 2016), may I simply refer those who are interested to a longer but related article in the current issue of … Read more
Sir,—Mark Phelan (HI 25.1, Jan./Feb. 2017) appears not to have consulted James Barros’s The Corfu Incident of 1923: Mussolini and the League of Nations (1965). Had he done so, he would have been encouraged to mention an important factor absent from his article—that the Treaty of London of 1864 (to which Britain, France, Russia, Prussia … Read more