Sir, – May I ask why Minister for Arts Heather Humphreys (Opinion, March 31st) uses the word "commemoration" and not "celebration" with regard to 1916?
No one, but no one, in the US or France commemorates their Independence Day or Bastille Day. They celebrate it.
When she says that she wants the commemoration to be inclusive, that it belongs to all of us, are we commemorating the British officer (who was Irish), who, following the surrender, stripped 58 year-old Tom Clarke naked and made him parade in the full view of the nurses at the Rotunda Hospital? There are many other examples.
The Minister never uses the word “pride”, or anything similar. Is she embarrassed?
Does she not want to celebrate that Irish men and women struck a blow at one of the most vicious empires that ever existed? – Yours, etc, FRANK MacGABHANN Skerries, Co Dublin. Sir, – I welcome the Government's decision to honour all the dead of 1916 in the centenary programme (Home News, April 1st).
Last week I visited the 9/11 museum in New York. The emphasis there is, quite correctly, on commemorating innocent victims.
To put matters in perspective: the nearly 3,000 victims of 9/11 represented just 0.0375 per cent of the population of New York city in 2001, whereas the civilian victims of 1916 – approximately 250 people – amounted to about 0.08 per cent of the population of Dublin city in 1916, over twice the casualty rate of the 9/11 atrocity.
When one factors in the casualties among the rebels, army and police, the dead of 1916 rises to 0.16 per cent of Dublin’s population.
I believe that the 9/11 museum is an interesting precedent for a very necessary strand in the 2016 commemoration.
We need to remember the victims of violence as well as those who, for however noble a cause (as they saw it), initiated the violence on the street of Dublin on Easter Monday 1916. – Yours, etc, FELIX M LARKIN Cabinteely, Dublin 18. Sir, – So Fine Gael are to draft a new Proclamation for the 1916 Centenary celebrations (let’s face it, Labour doesn’t count in this). No surprise there, they were never comfortable with the idea of standing up to Britain.
But what will the new one say?
Given that times have changed maybe it will say “We will not cherish all of the children equally in deference to our craven masters in Europe”. Any mention of gallant allies would surely mean Greece and we know that they are too spineless to even indicate that they would stand side-by-side with Greece.
On the bright side, this is surely a chance for all comedians and satirists to have a field day writing their own version of what Fine Gael really thinks. – Yours, etc, GEARÓID Ó LOINGSIGH Bogotá, Colombia.
Sir, – If Enda Kenny wants to redraft the 1916 Proclamation may I offer some suggestions. It’s high time we removed the concept of “religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities” and as for “the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation”, well what are we, some kind of Communists?
I don’t know why we need to “cherish all the children of the nation equally” either and I’m happy that we can lose the concept of “the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland”.
And just in case he doesn’t spot it could he also fix the upside down “e” in the first line of the final paragraph. – Yours, etc, LORCAN COLLINS Templeogue, Dublin 6W.