Madam, - The theme of President McAleese's presidency is "building bridges". She has deserved praise for all the work she has done promoting peace and reconciliation in Ireland. But her latest remarks on the 1916 Rising were, like her previous comments comparing Ulster Protestants to Nazis, misguided.
Mrs McAleese is a nationalist and it would be unrealistic for unionists to expect her to renounce the nationalist tradition. All states have their founding myths, and unionists frequently indulge in many myths of their own. They cannot complain about the President if they do not first engage in a little self-analysis.
But as the first President from Northern Ireland, Mrs McAleese has a fantastic opportunity to help to shape the future of Irish nationalism. It would be unfortunate if she used this position to encourage a more "hardline" approach. If politicians in the South are serious when they claim they want to see a united Ireland, they should be attempting to foster a new national identity which would also embrace the unionist tradition.
Given the history of conflict in Ireland, no politician who is serious about "moving forward" can afford to indulge in the kind of cult worship of founding fathers that is successful, for example, in the United States. Now is not the time to reclaim republicanism; it is the time to seek a new national identity. - Yours, etc,
DAVID C. SHIELS, Peterhouse, Cambridge, England.
Madam, - The President's recent speech on the Easter Rising was spirited and well-written; I should like to have heard it. But her views need challenging on one point at least.
I accept that the 1916 leaders, courageous in facing not only death but also ridicule, were not narrow nationalists: the Proclamation is indeed a generous document. They were, however, undemocratic, a minority of a minority choosing to embark upon a course of action almost certain to fail and involving death and destruction for fellow-citizens. Their action was initially condemned by a wide spectrum of opinion. Only General Maxwell's heavy-handedness brought them the support they had sought.
Whether this appeal to force in 1916 was in the best long-term interests of Ireland is a subject of debate. The President would have strengthened her case, I think, by at least considering alternative views - particularly as her speech was clearly intended to be inclusive.
The reference to Ireland's administration being carried on "as a process of continuous conversation around the fire in the Kildare Street Club by past pupils of public schools" is a little unworthy, and indeed untypical of the President. By the early 20th century the club's members had lost most of their economic and political power; they may well have been grumbling about this around the fire, certainly not administering the country. - Yours, etc,
STEPHEN BARCROFT, Puckane, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - Kevin Myers rightly establishes the unsurprising fact that innocent people die in violent revolution. No one has the right to kill innocent people. The 1916 insurgents did indeed show a reckless disregard for human life, particularly when Padraig Pearse himself recognised that failure was the inevitable outcome of the Rising.
The ensuing and ultimately successful struggle against the British colonial regime proved that there was a better way.
However, Mr Myers implicitly asks what right the insurgents had to take up arms against the regime. The answer is: every right. The Act of Union of 1801 removed the last vestiges of sovereignty from the Irish people. Throughout the 19th century the Irish people through the Irish Party voted for the restoration of that limited sovereignty. Their wishes were undemocratically ignored for 100 years; hence the futility of standing for election to the British parliament. Insurgency in such a context is a legitimate response.
Mr Myers would no doubt respond that Home Rule would have been restored after the War. This may well be true, but the British themselves, by their brutal treatment of the surviving insurgents, showed that that limited form of sovereignty was no longer adequate. The Irish people realised that the regime was indeed a colonial one, that they would never be treated as equal partners in a United Kingdom. They democratically rejected Home Rule in favour of full independence by massively supporting Sinn Féin in the 1918 election. Again these wishes were ignored by an increasingly brutal British imperial regime.
Finally, Mr Myers asks should we celebrate 1916? Yes we should, albeit not uncritically or disproportionately. The Rising, violent and unjustified as it was, did bring about an awakening of national consciousness which ultimately led to the defeat of the British Empire by our small nation and the establishment of a representative democratic republic on this island. - Yours, etc,
PATRICK MARTIN, North Anne Street, Dublin 7.
Madam, - Like the Taoiseach and many others, President McAleese is trying to "reclaim" 1916 from violent, non-democratic republicanism.
It can't work. The project is too riddled with inconsistency, special pleading, and question-begging. If the 1916 leaders were heroes, they are models to be imitated. But the great political achievement of this State has been to maintain itself as a constitutional democracy against those who, in 1922-23, in 1939-45, in 1956-62, and from 1969 to the present day wanted to imitate the 1916 leaders.
Ireland did not have independence in 1914 but, unlike other parts of the empire such as India, it had full legislative representation at Westminster, and was governed by the rule of law. Neither meant a thing to the 1916 leaders, since they dismissed the first as irrelevant and directly attacked the second. The trauma of the Civil War showed us that we needed those values after all.
Quoting the 1916 Proclamation won't prove that the signatories were inclusive, anxious to embrace unionists. The 1916 rising occurred largely because people such as Eoin MacNeill and Patrick Pearse refused to accept that the northern unionists could not be coerced into an independent united Ireland and, unlike John Redmond, were prepared to use force to coerce them. Today, when we accept that a united Ireland can come about only by consent, we are saying that Redmond was right and Pearse was wrong.
It is not possible to believe in constitutional democracy and the rule of law, and simultaneously hold up the men and women of 1916 as models to be imitated. Easter 1916 may be part of who we are; that doesn't mean it is necessarily good. To talk of reclaiming 1916 is to ignore what we have learnt during the past 30 years. - Yours, etc,
SÉAMUS MURPHY SJ, Lecturer in Philosophy, Milltown Institute, Dublin 6.