Readers of The Southern Star will be familiar with the work of Robert Hume, a regular contributor to these pages on all things historical, who regularly delves into both the factual elements of our history and the folklore, at times entertaining, and at others, sombre.

In recent years, Robert has written in these pages on the history of Ireland’s first purpose-built hotel, The Eccles in Glengarriff, as well as the ‘tall tale’ of Kinsale giant Patrick Cotter, and Skibbereen’s Percy Edwin Ludgate, he of one of the first ‘analytical machines’ i.e., a computer.

More recently, he has written on the glorious history of road bowling in West Cork, proving history is always in the making.

This week Robert, who is a former head of history at Hillview School, Tonbridge, and Clarendon House Grammar School, Ramsgate, both in Kent, is pleased to announce the reissue in paperback of his book The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper’s Victims.

‘My book focuses almost entirely on the tragic lives of the poor women who were killed in Whitechapel in 1888, rather than speculating about the identity of the murderer. There’s already been more than enough about that,’ says Robert.

In this book, the stories of the five victims whose deaths are traditionally attributed to Jack the Ripper are told, while acknowledging there may have been more. Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly from Limerick, were all murdered by the serial killer in Whitechapel, London in 1888.

Other female murder victims are thought to be possible victims of the same murderer, and the ‘Whitechapel Murders’ file (the generic police file on the case), contains the names of eleven victims: the five above and also Emma Smith, Martha Tabram, Rose Mylett, Alice Mackenize, an unknown victim known as the ‘Pinchin Street torso’, and Frances Coles.

The book was originally published in 2019, however the seismic changes brought about by Covid meant that opportunities to give the book, and the stories of the women within, the fair exposure they warrant was unfortunately missed.

The Hidden Lives of Jack the Ripper’s Victims is currently available to preorder, and sits among publisher’s Pen & Sword’s for this week.