A chara, - Robin Bury (May 14th) shows as little knowledge of "Home Rule" as he previously displayed of Irish soldiers who survived the horrors of a war allegedly fought for the "freedom of small nations".
For the record, the colonists in America had home rule. They controlled their own affairs and they had a congress of parliament that represented their interests. It was England's insistence on "taxation without representation" and the arrival of large bodies of troops to enforce the British government policy that provoked a war for full independence.
John Redmond's Home Rule Bill was a joke. The Dublin Parliament would have been a kind of glorified county council with very limited power. Everything of importance, including the post office, foreign policy, peace, war, taxation and defence would have remained in the control of the London junta.
With no army of our own, and within the empire, we would have continued to share guilt and responsibility for the crucifixion and exploitation of Kipling's "lesser breeds outside the law".
It is of interest to note that no loyalist or empire supporter has ever admitted that over the centuries Britain was responsible for a holocaust of coloured people the scale of which would horrify even Hitler. Would Robin Bury admit that? The leaders of the 1916 Rising delivered a mortal blow to the prestige of the Empire and for that humanity in general, and coloured people in particular, are greatly in their debt.
When conscription was threatened in 1918, it was soundly defeated not by John Redmond, but by a risen people led by Sinn Féin and the volunteers, who spearheaded anti-conscription campaigns in every part of Ireland. If only the unfortunate English working class had such leaders!
Personal attacks on Pearse and other leaders are irrelevant. The dead cannot after all, defend themselves by way of libel action. History will be the final judge. Long after Robin Bury and the revisionists - agus mise freisin - are dead and forgotten the 1916 Leaders will be honoured by freedom-loving people everywhere.
The poet Francis Ledwidge, then in British uniform, wrote after the Rising:
"A noble failure is not vain
It hath a victory of its own
A bright delectance from
the plain
Is down the generations
thrown".
Bhí an lán cheart aige! - Is
mise,
PADRAIG Ó CUANACHÁIN Old Youghal Road, Cork.