Sir, - It would be a matter of regret to have to number Prof Thomas Bartlett (April 15th) among those few fellow academics whose response to my raising legitimate questions about "Comoradh '98" has been to query my competence or professionalism. In his defence of Daniel Gahan's "discovery" of an atrocity early in the Battle of New Ross, matching that of Scullabogue and involving a rebel "hospital", Prof Bartlett cites the Rev James Gordon's account (1801). This had not been used by Gahan for the very good reason that its brief account of that battle makes no mention of either hospital or atrocity. The well-known quotations in Prof Bartlett's letter come from Gordon's account of the recapture of Enniscorthy, some 20 miles away and more than two weeks later. Likewise, the relevant paragraph of his citation from Lecky begins, "Enniscorthy was at the same time taken ..."
Perhaps Prof Bartlett has been too busy to follow this little controversy in such tiresome detail, but he might at least have checked the sources he found so "compelling". A critical engagement with sources was insisted on during my student days at UCD, but no doubt this emphasis makes me a dinosaur in the brave new world of "post-revisionist" history. As such, I can only repeat that there is not a shred of evidence for a rebel hospital in New Ross, nor for the Wexford "Senate", nor for the Wexford "Republic".
The onus is on those historians who continue to mislead the public in relation to these matters to either put up or shut up. Let us see some genuine, convincing evidence; and meanwhile, stop shooting the messenger! - Yours, etc., Prof Tom Dunne,
Department of History, University College, Cork.