Ne Temere where are you?

Sir,—Being a child of the early twentieth century, I was surprised, andat first annoyed, to find the Autumn issue of History Ireland a vehiclefor the setting out of Roman Catholic opinion of itself in the newcentury, with historical justifications from the past. As a, what usedto be condescendingly described in the Ireland of my youth,‘non-Catholic’, … Read more

Bitter Memories

Sir,—I wish to commend Enda Staunton for his article, ‘The ForgottenWar: the Catholic Church and Biafra (1967-1970)’, in the Autumn 2000edition of History Ireland. I read the article with great interest. Itbrought back to me bitter memories of the civil war. I am an lgbo (Nigerian). I was six years old when the war began … Read more

Clerical child sexual abuse

Sir,—In the course of his article ‘A Church in Crisis’ (HI Autumn 2000) James S. Donnelly Jr reviewing the situation of the Irish Catholic Church today discusses the impact made on the Irish public by the RTÉ television programme States of Fear (April-May 1999). He says: For their thoroughly researched set of programmes the editors … Read more

Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541-1641, Hiram Morgan (ed.) (Four Courts Press, £35) ISBN 1851824405

This collection of eleven articles, introduced and edited by Hiram Morgan, grew from a seminar on political ideology in the hundred years covering the second half of the sixteenth century and the pre-Cromwellian half of the seventeenth, that he directed at the Folger Institute, Washington DC, in 1995. His introductory essay ‘Beyond Spenser?’ takes the … Read more

Political Ideas in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, S.J. Connolly (ed.) (Four Courts Press, £35) ISBN 1851825568

Sean Connolly opens this volume, the third in the Folger Institute series, with a quotation from R.B. McDowell’s Irish Public Opinion, 1750-1800 (1944). Remarkably and regrettably it is only within the last decade or so that scholars have begun building on the ground broken by McDowell over half a century ago, and for that reason … Read more