Sir,—In 2016, Sir Bob Geldof stated that the men of 1916 were the same as Muslim Jihadis. At about the same time, an eminent, well-respected British journalist reinforced this view. While still getting over the shock of that insight, I was doubly shocked to read Aidan Beatty’s (HI 26.1, Jan./Feb. 2018) revelation that Gaelgeoirí in the early part of the twentieth century were, wittingly or unwittingly, aligned with Jewish Zionism. It would seem, from the foregoing, that advanced Irish nationalists were such a versatile lot that they excluded nothing from their arsenal when it came to trying to unshackle themselves from the yoke of British Imperialism. However, one can only wonder why an absurdist/surreal work, by Myles na gCopaleen a.k.a. Flann O’Brien a.k.a. Briain O’Nuallain a.k.a. Brian O’Nolan (amongst other a.k.a.’s), should be used in a serious treatment of the phenomenon of name-changing. After all, one would hardly use Terrence ‘Spike’ Milligan’s novel Puckoon to elucidate the hazards of creating borders where none previously existed.—Yours etc.,
EUGENE HANDLEY
Boyle, Co. Roscommon