Revisiting the revisionists

Madam, - Some years ago I heard the Taoiseach depart from his script, in launching David Fitzpatrick's book on Harry Boland, …

Madam, - Some years ago I heard the Taoiseach depart from his script, in launching David Fitzpatrick's book on Harry Boland, and confide with great intensity to his bemused audience, "What I fear most is the revisionists."

In his speech at the Boyne ( The Irish Times, May 9th) he declared: "As we work to build a shared future, we are all coming to acknowledge that we have a shared and complex past."

This sums up well the main message of several generations of "revisionist" Irish historians, and one which has been an indispensable foundation of the peace process. - Yours, etc,

TOM DUNNE, Professor Emeritus of History, University College Cork, Montenotte, Cork.