Sir, – Ronan McGreevy's Irishman's Diary (May 24th) on the centenary of the death of one of Ballylongford's most famous sons, Lord Kitchener, was very informative about the other Irish victims of the sinking of HMS Hampshire.
Kitchener’s residence in Ireland was a matter of 14 years, a highly formative period in his life.
His father, an unpopular landlord and stern disciplinarian, set the young Kitchener boys to work on the estate. Much local amusement was caused by his instruction to the manager of the Listowel Arms not to give the future field marshall breakfast unless he had sold all the cattle he had driven to the market.
Herbert also showed himself resistant to the influence of the local primary school, being described in one report as a dullard.
Despite being also taught by private tutors, at the age of 17 he was found to have only a rudimentary grasp of English and arithmetic and an almost complete absence of general knowledge when assessed by a cousin who was a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge.
In the spirit of reconciliation of the various traditions of our island, one might hazard that it is time to erect a commemorative memorial to Kitchener in north Kerry.
A potential objection may arise from his role in the maintenance and extension of one of the earliest recorded explicit policies of concentration camps, in South Africa during the Second Boer War.
However, it is also worth noting that Waterford city erected a statue in 2015 to another Irish field marshall, Earl Roberts of Kandahar, Pretoria and Waterford, who was the originator of this savage and unhappy policy, which caused so many deaths through abysmal administration and a callous lack of care. – Yours, etc,
Prof DESMOND O’NEILL,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.