THE author of England’s Greatest Spy: Eamon de Valera was interviewed by John Green on Radio Kerry during the week. The 470-page book, by John J Turi, will not be published until the last day of November so it is not possible to comment on it.

WHILE at the National Archives previewing the State papers, which were officially released yesterday, I happened to be sitting beside Prof Ronan Fanning when I came across a letter written to him by the Irish ambassador to the US in 1977.

Robert de Niro’s second directorial feature, The Good Shepherd (Universal, €24.99), takes a look (an exhausting one for the viewer) at the OSS (the CIA’s predecessor) with Matt Damon playing Edward Wilson, an idealised Yale student recruited to help his country.

MORE than 1,100 Cork women were victims of domestic violence last year, according to figures released by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

THE majority of Americans now have reservations about their country’s involvement in Iraq, with a resulting plummet in the popularity of George W Bush.

RYLE DWYER makes the extraordinary claim that in September 1943, Eamonn de Valera approved the plan that our diplomatic representatives in Berlin, Rome, and Vichy be recruited by the OSS and used as American spies (Irish Examiner, February 21). He further implies that this actually happened.

TODAY marks the 60th anniversary of the famous American note demanding the recall of Axis representatives from Dublin on the grounds that they supposedly posed a threat to the forthcoming Allied invasion of Europe.

ALONG with the State Papers released annually under the 30-year rule, other documents that should have been opened in previous years have also just been released.