Madam, - I question the view that the 1916 Rising changed the course of Irish history. Surely that course was already well and truly set by the end of 1915, with or without a rising? It needed only that the republican ambitions of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the mindset of the British government should both continue.
Recall December 1915. In spite of his great achievements, John Redmond had been fatally undermined by unwise British decisions and by the tragic course of the first World War. The IRB, controlling a network of dedicated activists, particularly the Irish Volunteers, had taken maximum propaganda advantage.
The massive funeral of O'Donovan Rossa that August had been a triumph. Pearse's famous oration, printed without comment by the Freeman's Journal, had become a standard recitation piece at family occasions in homes all over Ireland. By the end of the year, Redmond's National Volunteers (150,000 of whom had stayed in Ireland) were no longer visible. The police were reporting increasing recruitment and activity by the much smaller force of Irish Volunteers- all, by then, ardent separatists.
Young men and women were flocking to the GAA and other culturally subversive organisations. These organisations, too, had been secretly infiltrated by the IRB. A younger generation were to get their first vote in 1918, when the franchise would reach three times its former size. Conscription was in the air, threatening all families with tragedy; the new women's vote would be crucial.
Thus, the secret IRB (banned by the Catholic Church as well as by the Castle), were well poised to take over nationalist Ireland. We can now see that they could have shelved their plans for a Rising without endangering their ambitions.
Their anti-conscription campaign, coupled with their later civic subversion campaign, would still have given a republican manifesto a comfortable nationalist mandate in 1918. (Actual share of the nationalist vote, 1918: Sinn Féin 68.5 per cent, other nationalists 31.5 per cent).
The same predictable British reactions would have guaranteed a War of Independence. The conclusion would have been what it was. Is there any good reason to think that anything significant would differ in the subsequent course of Irish history?
Should we condemn Pearse and his many willing colleagues - those who died and those who survived to govern Ireland for decades - for what we can now see was an unnecessary and tragic event, even in terms of republican ambitions? History is replete with admired leaders who made such judgments.
With our hindsight, and in particular with our norms of today, we must have misgivings about the Rising, while understanding it in its special context and by the norms of that time. And we can continue to admire Pearse. He, more than anyone of his era, raised the sights of his people and defined what nationhood could signify. Likewise we can admire the patriotic Redmond, while dissenting from his fateful and unmandated decision to call Irishmen to British arms in 1914.
Wolfe Tone, O'Connell, Parnell, Redmond and Pearse - all made major contributions to our contemporary nationhood, which we relish, even as we address our shortcomings. - Yours, etc,
GERARD MOANE, Cherrywood Road, Loughlinstown, Dublin 18.