Sir, – Last year I joined a guided tour of Selskar Abbey in Wexford, an 800-year-old church built soon after the Norman invasion. The tour guide had just told us about Henry VIII and the Reformation when he then asked a young Irish university student, the only other Irish person on the tour, what person came to Ireland in the 17th century and wreaked death and destruction, especially in Wexford, Clonmel and Drogheda. Quick as a flash, the reply came, “Eamon de Valera”. Both the tour guide and I had difficulty in keeping a straight face whereas the foreign tourists present accepted the revision of history unquestioningly. – Yours, etc,
FINBAR KEARNS,
Piercestown, Co Wexford.