Sir, —Further to Liam Ó Ruairc’s review of my Tom Barry, IRA Freedom Fighter (HI 12.1, Spring 2004), Brian Hanley has raised points (HI 12.2, Summer 2004) that need clarification. I have found no evidence that Tom Barry left the IRA in 1923. On 11 July 1923, Barry wrote to the chairman of … Read more
Sir, —In his examiner’s report on my Harry Boland’s Irish Revolution (HI 12.2, Summer 2004), Manus O’Riordan awards me ‘9 out of 10 as to balanced presentation of a voluminous amount of evidence’, but a miserable fail in applying my ‘declared aim of impartiality’ to the ‘accompanying commentary’. Though I declared no such aims in … Read more
Sir ,—Brendan Bradshaw’s interview technique in relation to Tim Pat Coogan (HI 12.2, Summer 2004) was anodyne in the extreme. The nationally minded renowned academic Professor Bradshaw afforded the green light to Mr Coogan in every sense of the word, allowing him to propagate, unchallenged, his Gaedhil distorted nationalist image of Irish history. Mr … Read more
Ireland and the British Empire Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series Kevin Kenny (ed.) Oxford University Press, £30 ISBN 0199251835 Victoria’s Ireland Peter Gray (ed.) Four Courts Press, £55 ISBN 185 1 827587 Irish participation in empire is most commonly considered a paradox: another unnatural by-product of the malign influence of British … Read more
Ireland, Germany and the Nazis: politics and diplomacy, 1919–1939 Mervyn O’Driscoll (Four Courts Press, £55) ISBN 185 1 824804 Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan Till Geiger and Michael Kennedy (eds.) (Four Courts Press, £55) ISBN 185 1 825193 Mervyn O’Driscoll’s Ireland, Germany and the Nazis is a positive contribution to the existing corpus … Read more