Sir, – Very late in his scathing review of Tim Pat Coogan's new book, 1916: The Mornings After – From the Courts Martial to the Tribunals, (Weekend Review, November 21st) Diarmaid Ferriter admits that Tim Pat Coogan "is a decent, compassionate man who has made a significant contribution to Irish life".
That was after his demolition job on Coogan’s latest opus. Given the man’s age, could the good professor not have excused him getting some times and dates wrong? After all he is not dealing with one of his UCD students here.
Following such a put-down however, and, in true Irish fashion, this book will probably be in the bestsellers list this Christmas! – Yours, etc,
FRANK RUSSELL
Blanchardstown,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter's vituperative review of Tim Pat Coogan's book 1916: The Mornings After – From the Courts Martial to the Tribunals has motivated me to place an immediate order with Amazon.
I look forward to the opportunity of forming an unbiased assessment of Coogan’s work.
– Yours, etc,
JEAN HORGAN,
Strawberry Beds,
Dublin 20.
Sir, – Undoubtedly, Prof Diarmaid Ferriter is a consummate and professional academic historian whose revisionist study of Éamon de Valera, Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Éamon de Valera (2007), was a valiant attempt to rehabilitate the somewhat tarnished reputation of the Fianna Fáil founder.
But is his review of the 80-year-old Tim Pat Coogan's latest book, 1916: The Mornings After – From the Courts Martial to the Tribunals, a consummate example of what Samuel Beckett called the "quaquaquaqua" of academic scholarship?
– Yours, etc,
HUGH McFADDEN
Harold’s Cross,
Dublin 6.
Sir – Diarmaid Ferriter’s deeply personal attack on Tim Pat Coogan [in the review of his new book] smacks of envy and opportunism.
No one has chronicled the Irish story better [than Tim Pat Coogan] whether it is the history of the diaspora, the respective lives of Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, his ground-breaking work on the H-Blocks and Northern Ireland to name just a few undertakings.
He has consistently challenged the revisionists, bravely given the usual type of abuse he has received.
I am deeply shocked that Ferriter who I would not have considered in that camp has now matched them for vitriol.
No other historian showed more guts and gumption to swim against the revisionist tide over the past few decades than Tim Pat who also came out triumphant with his assessment of the IRA as ready to take on a peace process when so many doubted it. It ill-behoves Diarmaid Ferriter to launch such a personal attack on an icon who has proven so remarkably prescient.
If he is half the historian Tim Pat Coogan is, he will have done very well, but this cheap shot does not augur well.
– Yours, etc,
NIALL O’DOWD
Irish Voice,
Sixth Avenue,
New York.