Sir, – Eunan O'Halpin's response (November 19th) to my comments on his "review" of my book The Twelve Apostles is lame, evasive and inadequate (October 15th). He apologises for only one of his howlers, what he coyly terms a"misstatement". Other than that he says he "stands by his comments". His "misstatements" were errors of fact, not comment. They included his gaffe over my description of why Alan Bell was shot, for which he apologies, but he does not advert to a number of other errors: those concerning Mick McDonnell, Peter Hart's lack of scholarship, and his offensive and inaccurate comments on Dan Breen and Vinny Byrne.
In an attempt to salvage some dignity from his blunderings, he says that it is wrong of me to deduce that he thinks it should only be academics like himself who work from Military History Bureau records because back in 2012 he lobbied for the release of these documents. This is prevarication. What he said in 2012 is not relevant. What concerns me is what he said, in pompous and condescending tones, in The Irish Times last month, namely that I treated the bureau statements as: "gospel rather than as carefully constructed memoirs elicited between 1947 and 1957, that, like any other historical source, require critical analysis". Later in the review he wrote that "journalists are schooled generally not to reveal their sources".
Decoding these comments, what O’Halpin terms “critical analysis”, any fair-minded person would come to the conclusion that he feels that he is better fitted than a journalist to make use of historical records.
To sum up, while my training does not enable me to give the source of the comment I quote in conclusion, I commend it to Prof O’ Halpin anyway: “When one finds oneself in a hole – stop digging.” – Yours, etc,
TIM PAT COOGAN,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.