Sir, – I must take issue with Frank McNally's reference to the Ireland's "honey-coating" of "war" by the euphemism of "emergency." (An Irishman's Diary, August 6th). It never happened nor had Ireland anything to gain by such trickery, unlike the British who have made a habit of it.
Ireland was not at war – “phoney” or bloody – between 1939 and 1945, but had declared an emergency when European war was imminent. Its government and its media described the unpleasantness in which its near neighbour and the British empire were engaged, as “war” from 1939 until that neighbour and its empire were rescued by the Soviet Union and the United States.
Britain waged a war in Malaya and Kenya and Cyprus and Ireland – and labelled them “emergencies”. Like good shopkeepers, fearing high insurance premiums during wars, Britain protected the rubber planters in Malaya by pretending that no war existed there.
DONAL KENNEDY,
London.