Some years ago here, I wrote about a visit to the “remote” (my description) Tipperary outpost of Rearcross. The column was mostly about the village’s pretty tin church which, as I said, looked like a little piece of New England dropped among the Slieve Felim Mountains. But reading it in retrospect, I might have been inclined to apologise for calling the place “remote” – a bad habit of Dublin journalists – on the grounds that nowhere is remote if you live there. It was written by a garda newly stationed in Rearcross in 1940. But, remote as the place may have seemed, it hadn’t been remote enough for the IRA’s purposes.

Source: The Irish Times November 04, 2025 19:08 UTC