The Skerries Patrician Millennium Project hosted a conference of major international significance last May at the local Community School. Skerries and its islands were an important centre of the ancient Gaelic kingdom of Brega, which from the late Iron Age to the Norman intervention of 1169, approximately covered the same area of modern Fingal bounded … Read more
Sir—I refer to Brian Hanley’s review of Robert A. Stradling’s book onIrish involvement in the Spanish Civil War (HI Winter 1999). In thatbook there is reference to a ‘Michael Cadell’, a member of the SpanishForeign Legion, who became a Catholic when he joined O’Duffy’s brigade.That man was actually Maurice Cadell, from a well-off Scottish family.He … Read more
Sir,—I am searching for historical or social information about howsingle pregnant girls were helped in giving birth in Dublin around thebeginning of the twentieth century. In particular I have evidence of anumber of births in 1916 at 590 North Circular Road. The person givenas present at the births was a Frances Moran. Dr Barnado’s, ChristChurch … Read more
With reference to Fintan Lane’s article (‘William Morris and Ireland’,HI Spring 2000) your readers may be interested to know that there isanother account of Morris’s visit to Dublin in 1887. In his account ofhis own early life, Experiences of a Literary Man (London 1926,pp.42-4) the litterateur and Irish Party MP Stephen Gwynn states thatas an … Read more
Sir,—The cliché ‘I hold no brief for…’ is usually followed by a qualifying ‘but’ and, as often as not, by some defence of the indefensible. In his letter to History Ireland (Winter 1999) Mr Margulies does not subvert that venerable convention. In contrast to my account of the ‘Butcher’ Cumberland (‘A Tale of Two Generals’, … Read more