Madam, - It is sadly predictable that whenever anyone writes appreciatively of the sacrifice of Irish soldiers in the Great War, someone else invariably points a finger to a "dark side". After the heart-warming remembrance of teenage Connaught Rangers (An Irishman's Diary, September 6th) we are once again invited to look at the dark side (Padraig Ó Cuanacháin, Letters, September 9th). In fact there is a dark side to all fields of human endeavour, but this does not prevent us from being aware of, and thankful for, the achievements of the honourable majority.
In a rededication of the grave of that gallant soldier Sgt Maj Cornelius Coghlan, VC, the Minister for Defence referred to the "tendency to tip-toe past the memory" of honourable and brave Irish soldiers. The reason for this seems to be a confusion of traditions. The simple, straight sword of our military tradition is confused with our two politico-religious traditions, which are now more like nail-studded clubs with which republican and loyalist civilians beat each other.
Ireland is one country regardless of its political border, with one centuries-old military tradition; this is indivisible and owned by the people of all Ireland, who can claim citizenship according to our Constitution. It is the shared heritage of all the people on this island, nationalist and unionist, Catholic and Protestant, who contributed to its glory. A military tradition belongs to a people, regardless of how they are now, or have been in the past, politically organised.
The Great War soldiers were an expression of the constitutional nationalist tradition of O'Connell, Parnell and Redmond, which has now flowered in the compromise of the Good Friday Agreement. The begrudgery seems to be an expression of fear that these honourable Irishmen, who answered the call of their elected political leader, would put in the shade the revered heroes of the "physical force" approach that had its tragic end (le cunamh Dé) in Omagh.
The soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment, whose CO's speech in Iraq received international acclaim, are the inheritors of the Irish military tradition just as much as the Second Eastern Battalion in Cathal Brugha Barracks, despite the fact that they are, for the time, being politically separated. Irish soldiers serving in the armies of France, Spain, Austria, the US and Britain have all made contributions, sometimes with their lives. In fact, other armies have made more operational use of this tradition than we do. For example, the 38th (Irish) Brigade of the British Army in the second World War took "Ubique et semper fidelis" as its motto from the Irish Brigade in the service of France.
When the founders of this State in 1922 decided that military force should be used only at the behest of a democratically elected government and not on the nod of a conspiratorial élite, the National Army, with the title of Óglaigh na hÉireann presented by the people, became the inheritor of Ireland's military tradition. This lives in Irish regiments of other armies. But its heart is in Ireland as the neglected jewel in the crown of the modern Irish Army, which may be only 80-odd years old but is summed up in Kipling's words: "We're not so old on the Army list, But we're not so new in the ring." - Yours, etc.,
PATRICK D. GOGGIN, (Capt, ret'd), Glenageary Woods, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.