Sir,—It is easy to see how Pat Poland (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024, ‘When Cork’s lord mayor incurred the wrath of Nazi Germany’) mistook SMS Schleswig Holstein (and thus her sister, Schlesien,pictured on p. 41) for a pocket battleship. She belonged to the Deutschland class of pre-dreadnought battleships launched before the First World War. The Deutschland … Read more
Sir,—The rhyme at the end of your piece on Bernard ‘Barney’ Hughes (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024, On This Day) brought back memories of a chant we had in boarding school in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, Co. Clare, in the early ’50s. The food wasn’t too good and the girls that served it were called Demos’s … Read more
Sir,—In his article ‘The death of Theobald Wolfe Tone—suicide or murder?’ (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024), Paddy Cullivan reveals the circumstances of his personal research on the death of Wolfe Tone, leading to his speculation that Tone could have been murdered rather than committing suicide. He is not the first to so postulate. A much more … Read more
Sir,—The article ‘George Petrie—a “type” of genius’ (HI 32.5, Sept./Oct. 2024) was a welcome addition to the portrait of this remarkable nineteenth-century polymath. Dermot McGuinne not only catalogues Petrie’s contributions to the area of specialised print and Irish type design but also provides the reader with stunning visual examples of his work.McGuinne’s scholarship confirms the … Read more
Sir,—With regard to John Dorney’s recent article, ‘How many died in the Irish Civil War?’ (HI 32.4, July/Aug. 2024), I wanted to draw your readers’ attention to a small local research project carried out in Tipperary, pertaining to a murder that occurred in the later stages of the conflict, which shed new light on the … Read more