<p>Owen Sheehy Skeffington was one of the few Irish public figures who carried a flame for individual conscience and humanitarianism during the mid century. He came from a socialist-republican backround (his father, Francis, a pacifist, murdered in 1916; his mother, Hanna, a prominent suffragette), and was to dedicate his life to the defence of liberal values. In her biography, his wife chronicles his schooldays in Ireland and America, his career...