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HISTORY: Masked Raiders: Irish Banditry in Southern Africa,1880-1899, By Charles van Onselen, Struik, 304pp. £16.63

THE IRISH HAVE always tended to have had strong views on South Africa. A century ago they fervently rallied in support of the white Afrikaners in a not dissimilar manner to that in which a few years ago they rallied to the cause of the black African population. They have, however, generally ignored the only permanently settled Irish population on the African continent, a community that dates from the 1780s, before the First Fleet arrived in Australia. This is unfortunate, as the Irish in South Africa make an interesting case study, contrasting as they do with those “huddled masses” who were driven by the Famine and its consequences to the United States.