Sir, – Although it has been uncomfortable, the long process of interrogating the Irish revolution, a process which began in the late 1960s, has probably been necessary to temper the excessive jingoism of the past and to achieve a more inclusive and balanced view of things. In the end, the more human and nuanced stories were preferable to the plaster saints of earlier days. We desperately need to hear about other perspectives – those of women, gays, Protestants, even the British angle. Not to self-loathe, but to self-understand.
But this process of interrogating Irish nationalism has at times seemed to become an end unto itself, endlessly purveyed by some commentators who failed to cast any type of questioning glance at other areas, or has seemed to be aggregated in a kind of insidious suggestion that the whole project of Irish self-determination is base or suspect.
Now we read that "President Michael D Higgins has suggested Britain's "imperial triumphalism" be re-examined in the same way as Irish republicanism has been over recent years ("President calls for re-examination of 'imperial triumphalism'", March 28th).
Mr Higgins said there has been much discussion of violence by Irish nationalists at the turn of the last century.
But he noted the “supremacist and militarist imperialism” of Britain over the same time had not been reviewed with “the same fault-finding edge”.
Amen to that.
But the questioning goes on. And must go on. On all sides.
And it seems we’ve discovered – in this year’s multifaceted, multilayered tapestry of commemoration (dare we say celebration?) that it does not have to mean collapsing our sense of belonging. It can broaden and deepen it. – Yours, etc,
AONGHUS DWANE,
Kimmage,
Dublin 12 .
Sir, – As Ireland is supposedly a Christian country, would it not be better, instead of raking up old embers by examination of past violence, to observe a Christian principle and just forgive? – Yours, etc,
VERELL BOOTH,
Shankill, Dublin 18.