Sir, - I largely agree with Chris Gambatese's observations (May 3rd) on General Custer's campaign against the native peoples of North America. I do not agree, however, that Carlow-born Captain Myles W. Keogh, who fought with Custer's regiment, should be excluded from my forthcoming book. The working title of the publication is Carlow's International Achievers.
Like it or not, Keogh was an achiever within the ranks of the American army. Earlier in his career he was twice decorated as a second lieutenant in the Battalion of St. Patrick, having fought in the Papal Army of Pius IX. Keogh was very much a career soldier, but hardly a policy maker.
I would like to draw Chris Gambatese's attention to a few other Carlow achievers and ask should they too be excluded? Pierce Butler (1744-1822) fought with British forces during the Indian and French wars in America. After the Revolution he was one of the architects of the American Constitution of which he was a signatory. Should James McCrudden, a Carlow-born British Air Force pilot during the First World War, be excluded because he downed 58 German planes.
Cardinal Francis Spellman, former Archbishop of New York, whose grandmother Ellen Keogh was from Carlow, was one of Lyndon Johnson's most vocal allies during the Vietnam War. Should such war-mongering by such an influential churchman dictate his exclusion.
My greatest difficulty with Mr Gambatese is that he has employed a moral definition to the word achievement. - Yours, etc., Jimmy O'Toole,
Kilkenny Road, Carlow.