Madam, - In his revealing address to the Reform Movement, John Bruton disowns the Rising of 1916 and is thereby false to the founding fathers of this State, who were its leaders, and to the founders of Fine Gael, his own party, all of whom took part in the Rising. - Yours, etc.,
M.M. IRELAND, Priory Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Let me see. The Reform Movement wants us to join the Commonwealth. (Obviously, our membership of the EU does not guarantee our freedom.) Some of this organisation's member-states are one-party dictatorships, others are engaged in a possibly illegal war, and are striving to make preventive war a part of international relations.
Its titular head is a hereditary monarch, putatively descended from Cedric of Wessex, who reigns over one of the few surviving explicitly sectarian states in Western Europe. This is the Reform Movement's idea of progress. What would its concept of wild reaction be like?
Meanwhile, the old canard about Home Rule having been available without military conflict is proposed at a meeting of these uncanny folk. All one can say here is that the precedents were not encouraging. The first Home Rule type movement, O'Connell's, was explicitly peaceful. It was forced down at Clontarf. (It may amuse readers to know that the officer picked for the delicate mission of plucking O'Connell out of a possible bloodbath at Clontarf was the nearly lunatic Lord Cardigan.)
Parnell's movement failed. Gladstone's efforts failed. Redmond's efforts secured the partition of Ireland, backed by comments from His Majesty's Opposition that encouraged treason and armed revolt. What is truly extraordinary is that peaceful endeavour persisted for so long.
I continue to follow the progress of the Reform Movement. It may provide harmless amusement for quite some time to come. And it is free. - Yours, etc.,
FRANK FITZPATRICK, St Kevin's Parade, Dublin 8.