Sir, - John Clarke (November 2nd) is surely entitled to criticise your columnist Kevin Myers. Mr Myers loves to be controversial and thereby encourages criticism. (I would love to have challenged his views on the books of Pat Barker [An Irishman's Diary, November 1st], but I suspected he was not really serious.)
However, Mr Clarke was wrong to challenge Mr Myers to denounce those who, in all sincerity, commemorate at Arbour Hill and elsewhere what they believe to have been a worthwhile sacrifice. Mr Myers has shown his support for those who genuinely believe such a sacrifice was necessary, while believing himself that it was terribly wrong. Many share this view.
Suppose for a moment that the carnage between 1919 and 1923 had not taken place. How many now believe that Ireland would still "a province be"? Surely we would have evolved, as did the great democracies of New Zealand, Australia and Canada, to a point where we would now be fully independent members of the (no longer British) Commonwealth - and possibly on an all-Ireland basis.
A dream? Possibly; but Mr Myers is as entitled to his dream as is Mr Clarke. - Yours, etc.,
W.J. Murphy, Malahide, Co Dublin.