By John Miles La Trinidad Valencera of the Spanish Armada was in trouble. The ship weighed 1,000 tons and had a complement of 360 men. She was leaking badly and had taken on more water than could be pumped out. Nevertheless, as she approached the Irish coast, she managed to rescue 264 men from another … Read more
By Éamonn Toland Charles Blount, the eighth Lord Mountjoy, was distraught. As commander of Queen Elizabeth’s forces in Ulster, he had ordered his troops to end the Nine Years’ War by starving Irish rebels into submission, at a cost by 1603 of tens of thousands of mostly civilian lives. Senior English officers had witnessed children … Read more
Sir,—There appears to be an ever-growing trend to dismiss the Civil War and to downplay it within the ‘decade of centenaries’. In his letter, ‘The failings of past generations’ (HI 29.4, July/August 2021), Joe Coy argues that, because the ‘butcher’s list’ is short in comparison to civil wars in the same period, it should, by … Read more
A chara,—My Platform piece (HI 28.4, July/August 2020) abridged an essay in Irish Studies Review that challenged revisionist claims to write value-free history. I then critiqued revisionism on its own empirical terrain, working methodically through three canonical texts to illustrate persistent bias, ultimately characterising revisionism as an ideological project providing an élite narrative of Irish … Read more
BY TONY CANAVAN Heroines being honoured in Belfast Belfast City Council is to erect statues of Winifred Carney and Mary Ann McCracken in the grounds of City Hall. Councillors unanimously agreed to a motion to commemorate United Irishwoman McCracken and the republican and trade unionist Carney for their heroism, leadership and commitment to social justice … Read more