A chara, - While I agree completely with Seán Moran's recent well-deserved tribute to Liam Mulvihill, I do question one of his conclusions. He seems to imply that a certain GAA rule change was made just before Liam Mulvihill's accession to office as director general in 1979 and, critically, he adds: "thus clearing the way for various exercises in extreme nationalist rhetoric".
This is far too simplistic; indeed quite mistaken. The rule in question is Rule 7(a) of the GAA official guide. It might be too tiresome now for readers to be subjected to the details here, but as one who was involved in the drafting of that rule change I can assure your readers that there was a specific reason why the change was made. And it had nothing to do with extreme nationalistic rhetoric. Quite the contrary. I would be very concerned if my conscientious colleagues of that time should now be misrepresented; or presented in such a derogatory light.
Furthermore, to conclude that that rule change was the cause of later (and very lamentable) events, is itself questionable on other grounds.
Historians are always alert to the danger of reading history backwards. The case in point is almost a classical example of falling into such an error. May I explain this in a logical format? Of any two given events, A and B, if A should happen before B, it is altogether presumptuous to conclude that A was the cause of B. A Latin dictum states it concisely "Post hoc, non propter" (after does not mean because!). In other words, Sunday, so to speak, is not the reason for Tuesday. And 1971 was not the reason for 1979!
I do ask you, Madam, please to undo the unfair implication. But in all of this, I do not at all wish to diminish the worth of Seán Moran's praise of the out-going director-general and I warmly join in the tribute. - Is mise,
LEON Ó MÓRCHÁIN, Cluain Cearbán, Co Mhuigheo.