Sir, - To Kevin Myers (April 9th) Irish Protestants post 1922 "neither spoke out about themselves. . . nor spoke out to assert themselves and their public rights". This interpretation belies the existence of The Irish Times, which was both vocal and active - in its defence of Protestant interests (real or imagined) and further ignores the significant contribution of Protestant TDs and senators who, in the main, railed against anything that upset the status quo, be it divorce or the Shannon Hydro Electrification Scheme.
Outside Dail Eireann, Senator Sir John Keane added an echo to his Seanad speeches by writing a weekly Irish column for the Sunday Times. At the Observer, Stephen Lucius Gwynn wrote a similar column whilst Provost J.
H.Bernard of TCD, amongst others, never tired of penning unsigned articles of woe for the Quarterly Review, Round Table and Blackwood's Magazine. Irish periodicals such as the Irish Statesman, the Leader and The Bell regularly ran articles by Irish Protestants about the Irish Protestant experience.
In fact, one cannot but be surprised by the regular frequency of these articles. The most notable must be those entitled "Protestantism since the Treaty" in the Bell of June 1944. None of this writing was done hiding behind a parapet, and neither was it done in isolation or in fear and trepidation. Publications particularly lacking in temerity include W. B. Stanford, A Recognised Church, the Church of Ireland in Eire (Dublin, 1944), H. R. McAdoo, No New Church (Dublin, 1945) and Arland Ussher The Face and Mind of Ireland (London, 1949).
With some considered thought, one could not possibly contend that the writings of Hubert Butler, F.S.L. Lyons, Elizabeth Bowen, Robert Maire Smyllie, Nicholas Mansergh, W.B. Yeats, David Thornley, Brian Inglis, Lionel Fleming, Jack White, J.H. Whyte, Olivia Robertson, Vivien Mercier, George Otto Simms, Patrick Campbell, Bryan Cooper TD and Lennox Robinson constituted an attempt by the Protestant minority at self censorship.
The oft quoted silence or absence from public affairs of the Protestant community after 1922, which Kevin Myers attributed to fear, was in the main the silence of disdain for the new order. Unionism had been the creed of the vast majority of Irish Protestants, and upon it they had prospered. Nationalism could offer them nothing that they didn't have before 1922, and quite a lot of what they didn't ever want. - Yours, etc.,
Laurel Road,
Dundrum,
Dublin 14.