Sir—I enjoyed Luke Gibbons’ article on Edmund Burke (HI Winter 1997),but may I add another point on the well-known Burke quotation in BrianFriel’s Philadelphia here I come. The quotation, from Reflections onthe Revolution in France (‘It is now sixteen or seventeen years since Isaw the Queen of France…’), was from a passage that generations ofIrish … Read more
Sir,—I have been researching the history of the Martin/Martyn family ofGalway, Ireland for over two years now, detailing as much as ispossible of our nine-hundred year history. The real surprise of my workwas that after some very detailed and painstaking research—neveragain!—I have been able to draw up/revise/up-date over a dozen familypedigrees, most of whom can … Read more
Sir,—I found it curious that Patrick O’Sullivan’s article ‘Ireland and the Olympic Games’ in HI Spring 1998 should fail to mention John Mary Pius Boland (1870-1958). Boland, a Dubliner, won two Olympic gold medals for tennis in the 1896 games in Athens, becoming the first Irishman to win an Olympic honour.—Yours etc., KEVIN O’SULLIVAN Letterkenny … Read more
Sir,—In 1938 a book was published entitled Wolfe Tone and the UnitedIrishmen—for or against Christ?, under the name of Leo McCabe. Sometimebefore that another book by the same author was published that dealtwith Henry VIII and the English Reformation. The theme of the 1938 bookwas that Irish separatism from the time of Tone onwards was … Read more
Sir,—Your Winter 1997 issue, the first I have read, made fascinatingreading and reminded me how involved in Irish history my own family hasbeen. It is sixty years since my parents and my brothers and sisterscame to England in January 1938, after my father’s farm failed, but itis only in my recent retirement years that there … Read more