Madam, - Charles Townshend, reviewing The Irish Times Book Of the 1916 Rising(Book Reviews, December 2nd), asserts that "the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising saw the first official public commemoration of Easter Week since the uneasy days of the 1970s".
He goes on to suggest that during that period the legacy of 1916 was "awkwardly suppressed". This is not so.
In 1991, on the 75th anniversary of the Rising, there was an official State commemoration outside the GPO in O'Connell Street presided over by President Robinson. After the State ceremony concluded there was a further official An Post function in the GPO at which Taoiseach Charles Haughey was guest of honour and keynote speaker. Such was the press of people, invited and otherwise, that the GPO doors had to be closed. An Post published a set of commemorative stamps and a brief history of the GPO by Maurice Cosgrave to mark the occasion.
In parallel with the official celebrations, John Stephenson and others organised a day-long programme of cultural activities, "An Doras Feasa/The Flaming Door", at Liberty Hall, the GPO and Kilmainham Jail, which included prose and poetry readings at the GPO by a multiplicity of Irish writers ranging from Anthony Cronin to Francis Stuart and including your own Déaglán de Bréadún.
These activities certainly do not constitute a suppression of memory either by the State or its citizens. As head of communications in An Post at the time I was then and am now proud to have played a small part in the organisation and co-ordination of these events. - Yours, etc,
PADDY BANKS, Political Adviser to the Minister of State, Irish Aid, Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin 2.