ROY Foster remarks in Paddy and Mr Punchthat a nodding acquaintance with Irish history, which one of his English commentators claimed to have, is ‘the most dangerous type of acquaintance.’ My own growing alarm at attempting to reinvent the wheel for the purpose of this conference has been allayed only slightly by reading a remark of John Stuart Mill: ‘Those Englishmen who know something about India, are even now those who understand Ireland best.