Sir, – Diarmaid Ferriter (“‘What if’ history can lead to distortion of past by current political prejudices”, Opinion & Analysis, September 27th) depicts John Bruton’s celebration of John Redmond as an example of “counterfactual history” gone awry.
He reads it an example of conservatives, “driven by a contemporary agenda”, seeking to “rewrite history according to their present-day political purposes and prejudices” and to “lament the passing of the great old order, an order sabotaged by liberals and leftist rabbles”.
In an attempt to minimise the role of parliamentary nationalists, Prof Ferriter makes much of the fact that many of them were returned unopposed to parliament in the 1910 election in which universal franchise had not been extended. But in the celebrated 1918 election with a greatly enlarged franchise, when Sinn Féin replaced the parliamentary nationalists as the dominant political force in Ireland, many of the victors were also returned unopposed and the lack of opposition was in no small part a consequence of intimidation.
Perhaps a clearer picture of the wishes of the Irish people was the polling in June 1922 for the third Dáil when, even in spite of an abortive attempt to control the outcome with a proportionate distribution of places to the rival factions of the incumbent Sinn Féiners, the cause of the peace settlement, that is, the Treaty, showed decisively Ireland’s adherence since to constitutionalism, even if some followed a “slightly constitutional” path. It should bear out Mr Bruton’s celebration of Redmond as a more authentic example of the Irish political disposition than the “minority of a minority” that staged the 1916 uprising. – Yours, etc,
JOHN P McCARTHY, PhD
Professor Emeritus
of History,
Fordham University,
New York.
Sir, – I fail to understand why Dr Brian P Murphy (September 27th) feels that “just rebellion” theory is not applicable to Ireland in 1916. Another distinguished priest-historian thought otherwise.
In a Thomas Davis lecture delivered in 1966, Prof FX Martin of UCD wrote as follows: “Many have wrestled with the problem of formulating a justification for the Easter Rising, but they have not found it an easy task . . . The traditional conditions required for lawful revolt seem at first sight, and even at second, to be absent in 1916. Firstly, the government must be a tyranny, that is without a legitimate title to rule the country. And there are four further conditions – the impossibility of removing the tyranny except by armed force, a proportion between the evil caused and that to be removed by the revolt, serious probability of success, and finally the approval of the community as a whole”.
It is a matter for legitimate debate whether even one of these conditions was met in 1916, and John Bruton is therefore fully justified in raising the issue. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Vale View Lawn,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Sir, – Desmond Fitzgerald (September 29th) lectures us on the mess we have made of our sovereignty, economically and socially, since we liberated ourselves, bloodily, from British rule. Seemingly, we would have been set free without a single nosebleed if we had waited a while! He is right of, course. This land flowed with milk and honey during the centuries when we nursed at the ample breasts of Mother Blighty. A million people did not die and another million did not emigrate during the mythical Great Famine. The peasants lived comfortably, illiteracy was unheard of and there was plenty of hot soup for secessionists. What fools we were to give it all up! – Yours, etc,
SHEILA GRIFFIN,
Blennerville,
Tralee, Co Kerry.