TURLOUGH O'KANE,
A chara, - I wish to take issue with Mr Fintan O'Toole's diatribe against the Wolfe Tones on the occasion of their breaking up (The Irish Times, January 12th). Should this article not have appeared in the Opinion section, rather than under News Features? For what we experience is nothing more than Mr O'Toole's antipathy towards the group.
Mr O'Toole will surely recall that The Helicopter Song, whatever it may celebrate, reached the top of the national charts upon its release, a fact that he does not care to mention in his article. Many of your paper's younger readers would be ignorant of this fact. Would he, as one of the country's foremost newspaper writers, not wish to relieve them of their ignorance? Perhaps he might also have added, when citing the song The Broad Black Brimmer of the IRA, that it refers exclusively to the War of Independence and the Civil War.
I recently had the good fortune to attend a Wolfe Tones gig in Galway, at which the group asked the audience to hold hands with each person beside them as they sang a song for peace. Mawkish and cringeworthy maybe, but hardly "whipping up hatred, self-pity and resentment".
I readily admit that the Wolfe Tones were too extreme for the palate of many good people (and bad people, such as myself, on occasion), but I feel a more balanced and sensitive piece would have been appropriate, given the band's recent demise and the fondness, judging by their record sales, which many others bore for them.
As a long-term supporter of (and former writer in ) your newspaper, and witness to its exemplary record in such regard, I trust you will find room for some of the counter points laid out in this letter. - Is mise,
Dr EOIN Ó SUILLEABHÁIN, The Rise, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin.
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Sir, - It is not often that I agree with Fintan O' Toole, but I would like to commend him on his article on the break-up of the Wolf Tones.
As someone from a Northern nationalist background, I found their songs simplistic and dangerous due to the political feelings they aroused.
I'm quite sure Wolfe Tone himself would have been offended to see his name used in such a tribal way. I can only hope they have disbanded for good. - Yours, etc.,
TURLOUGH O'KANE, Dublin 3.