But is it Jack White?

A new stamp was to be issued today commemorating the Irish Citizen Army and its founding commander, Capt. Jack White. But is it Jack White?

An authority on Jack White, Leo Keohane (Centre for Irish Studies, NUI Galway), has issued following statement:

“Captain Jack White DSO was one of the founders of the Irish Citizen Army and in 1914 was the Chairman of the Army Council and as such was in charge of all training.

“I have been researching his life and times for the last six years or so and have written a biography which is to be published this year by Merrion Press. Over the years I have become familiar with various images of White. I can categorically state that the man portrayed on the stamp is not Jack White.

“I would also add the following:  It is obvious from his place in the photograph that the man is a junior officer. White, as the overall Commandant, would never have stood in such a position.”

Ann Matthews adds: “Captain Jack White is not in that photograph. It was taken in late August 1914 and White had left the ICA at that point.”

Make your own comparisons: have a look at a confirmed picture of Jack White here.

– John Cunningham

[Note: this piece was originally posted on the Facebook page of the Irish Centre for Histories of Labour and Class (NUI Galway).]

The voice of Eamon de Valera

Let me set the scene. It’s last Saturday afternoon, and I’m rooting through the crates of vinyl at the record fair at Electric Garden on Abbeygate Street in Galway city centre. The boxes are filled with the usual stuff: records from the seventies that someone now wishes they hadn’t gotten rid of, odd copies of Pet Shot Boys and Police LPs that they wish they’d never heard of, and a rare edition of Led Zeppelin IV with a misspelt cover that’s inexplicably worth hundreds as a result. And there, in the Irish section, set among the Microdisney and Fatima Mansions records, I came across this:

Ah, Galway. Always another twist when you least expect it. (I’ll post something here soon about the two individuals I saw a few weeks back, decked out in full mariner regalia and reciting dialogue from Moby Dick down by Spanish Arch. On a Saturday afternoon. In broad daylight.)

But back to de Valera. Does anyone out there know anything about this LP? Has anyone ever heard it? Should I have bought it? Is it worth money? (Note the increasingly frantic tone of a man who feels his winning lotto ticket may have passed him by, when he bought a fairly battered copy of this instead.)

– Kevin O’Sullivan

Book launch- Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire

For anyone who is in the Dublin area this week, I will be launching my new book, Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire: Small State Identity in the Cold War, 1955-75 (Manchester University Press), on Wednesday 12 June in Hodges Figgis Bookstore, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, at 18.30. All are welcome to come along – there will be plenty of refreshments to go around! You can download the invite in pdf format here, or click the image below to enlarge.

– Kevin O’Sullivan

Landed Estates & Irish Society Conference, NUI Galway, 13-14 June

The programme is now available for the ‘Landed Estates & Irish Society’ conference (part of the Landed Estates project) at the Moore Institute, NUI Galway, 13-14 June 2013. Click the image below to enlarge, or download the pdf here.