DEVOY’S CHAIR; JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY’S BIRTH PLACE

Above: Seamus Moore (mayor of Naas), Eoghan Mac Gabhann, Frank Mac Gabhann and Carmel Kelly (cathaoirleach, Kildare County Council) at the presentation of John Devoy’s chair (foreground) to Naas Library.

Sir,—Two (very) small corrections in your last issue (HI 33.6, Nov./Dec. 2025). Re Donal Fallon’s very fine item (p. 11), John Devoy’s chair was really not ‘return[ed]’ to Kildare this year. This was its first journey there, having been bought in New York City around 1920. Re Angeline O’Neill’s equally fine and longer piece (pp 28–31), John Boyle O’Reilly was born in Dowth, Co. Meath, not Drogheda. When he died, he was probably the most famous Irishman in the world, after Parnell and possibly Oscar Wilde. He is now, unfortunately, even more forgotten than Devoy.—Yours etc.,

FRANK MAC GABHANN