A chara,—Apropos Conor McCabe’s Platform piece, ‘Where, oh where is the evidence? Greaves, Connolly and the British Army’ (HI 33.3, May/June 2025). Quite apart from the controversial question of Connolly’s military service, I was interested to see McCabe draw attention to the fact that Connolly had an older sister, Mary. Readers may be interested to know that Connolly also had another sister. Catholic baptismal records indicate that Margaret Connolly was born to John and Mary Connolly of King’s Stables Road, Edinburgh, on 2 January 1859. The godparents, Ann and Peter Gilmour, were respectively the sister and brother-in-law of Mary Connolly, née McGinn. Although Scottish statutory death records were introduced in 1855, initially they were sketchy, and this would appear to be the only record of Margaret’s short existence. Nonetheless, it does indicate that hard evidence on Connolly’s early life and background is still out there for those with a mind to look for it.—Is mise,
RÚT NIC FOIRBEIS