76th Anniversary of the Ballymanus Mine Disaster, 10th May 1943
It is 76 years since 19 men, including my mother’s uncle, were killed by a mine washed up at Mullaghduff / Ballymanus in the Rosses. Here is a post on…
Tag: world war ii
November 12th 1988: Two contrasting letters from Kingsley Amis
In “The Letters of Kingsley Amis”, edited by Zachary Leader, we find two contrasting and yet in their own way characteristic letters from Kingsley Amis from this day thirty years…
The perils of double bluffs – Operation Ottrington
A while back I posted on the unintended consequences of too secret a secret codeword. Here’s a bit from Jonathan Gawne’s “Ghosts of the ETO: American Tactical Deception Units in the…
“A leader for whom silence was a virtue” Sudhir Hazareesingh on Charles De Gaulle
It seems a bit of a truism to describe Charles de Gaulle as an extraordinary figure, but truisms are no less true for being true. It is hard to know…
May 10th 1943 – the Ballymanus Mining Disaster
I previously posted this poem on the Ballymanus Mine Disaster, which happened on this date in 1943. My great-uncle died in this disaster, one of the neglected tragedies of World…
Some extracts from “The Woman Who Waited”, Andrei Makine
‘She is a woman palpably meant for happiness (if only purely physical happiness, mere bodily well-being) and yet so casually, it seems, she has chosen solitude, loyalty to an absent…
Séamus Sweeney 