Sir,—History Ireland is up to its old tricks again. In the article on Sefraid Ó Fearghaill (HI 31.1, Jan./Feb. 2023, pp 14–17) by Stephen Hewer it is stated that ‘by 1270 the English had been colonising parts of Ireland for over 100 years’. In the same article there are several other references to the ‘English’. … Read more
Sir,—I may be able to identify ‘the enigmatic “Mr Delvin, Ireland”’ who is cited in Fiona Fitzsimons’s article on ‘Home Children—an Irish perspective, 1860s to 1922’ (HI 34.3, May/June 2023) as having brokered in 1899 the emigration to Canada of ‘a group of young women with a median age of nineteen’. Charles Ramsey Devlin (1858–1914), … Read more
Sir,—Martin Green’s ‘James Joyce’s Huguenots’ (HI 31.3, May/June 2023) should have directed readers to Marie M. Léoutre’s thorough investigation of the Earl of Galway’s career, Serving France, Ireland and England: Ruvigny, Earl of Galway, 1648–1720 (Routledge, in paperback since 2020). Also, of all the tantalising allusions to the Huguenots in James Joyce, unfortunately the one … Read more
Sir,—The book on the lawyer and jurist John O’Hagan, by Thomas J. Morrissey SJ (reviewed in HI 31.3, May/June 2023, Bookworm), informatively foregrounds a number of matters, including O’Hagan’s connections with Thomas Davis and other nationalists and with the Catholic University. The limited compass of the book means that it cannot mention all the interesting … Read more
Sir,—The news that Eamonn Ceannt’s now-iconic uilleann pipes would be presented, on loan, to the Jackie Clarke Collection Museum in Ballina, Co. Mayo, caught my attention (HI 31.4, May/June 2023, Bite-sized History, p. 11). I was well aware that my grand-uncle, James Glynn, had fought side by side with Ceannt, and indeed with Cathal Brugha … Read more