Sir, – John Bruton again asserts that the Easter Rising was unnecessary (on the basis of no evidence whatever) and that the offer of home rule should have been pursued (“Scotland shows 1916 Rising a mistake, says John Bruton”, September 18th).
Mr Bruton seems to have forgotten that the Irish people overwhelmingly voted in the 1918 general election for independence and this exercise in democracy was comprehensively dismissed and disregarded by the British government, which decided to meet the wishes of the Irish people with military might.
Perhaps Mr Bruton could explain how the Irish were at fault here? Perhaps he could also let us know if he considers that any of Britain’s colonies were right to take up arms in a bid for freedom ?
Maybe if the American people hadn’t had the temerity to seek and win independence they might be expecting an offer of home rule any day now. – Yours, etc,
HUGH PIERCE,
Newtown Road,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Sir, – Former taoiseach John Bruton in drawing parallels between Irish and Scottish Independence models once again rebukes our revolutionary past.
Addressing a Reform Group seminar at the Royal Irish Academy, Mr Bruton said Scotland had decided to seek a mandate for Scottish independence from the UK without loss of life and without the bitterness of war and Ireland could have followed the same peaceful path towards the independence that Scotland is now considering taking.
The fight for Irish separatism was not just an ideological strike for independence. The Irish people had endured for centuries the violence of colonisation by our imperial masters This colonial violence inflicted on the dispossessed peasantry included the punitive policy of transportation to the penal colonies for minor infringements of law. It also forcibly imposed the plantation of Ireland, the Penal Laws that led to the “hedge schools” and Mass rocks, harsh evictions, harsher landlordism and chronic hunger. The violence of the Famine, which saw Ireland lose millions of her poorest children to starvation, disease and emigration, despite being an integral part of the wealthiest and most powerful empire in the world, was more than sufficient reason to forcibly rid this country of British rule. In the general election of 1918 John Redmond and home rule were overwhelmingly rejected by an electorate that espoused separatism. This wholly constitutional and parliamentary decision of the Irish people was rejected by the British government, a rejection which led to “loss of life and bitterness of war”. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Templeville Road,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.
A chara, – John Bruton says that “Ireland could have followed the same peaceful path towards independence that Scotland is considering today”. He is forgetting (or pretending to be ignorant of the fact) that half a million Ulstermen and women swore to reject Ireland’s first step to separation from the UK by force of arms, and that the British army threatened mutiny if sent to counter this threat; two minor details that do not exist in Scotland’s situation. – Is mise,
SAM QUIRKE,
Church Street,
Killaloe, Co Clare.
Sir, – John Bruton’s fixation on the 1916 Rising is bordering on a Freudian obsession. – Yours, etc,
DEREK HENRY CARR,
Harcourt Terrace,
Dublin 2.
A chara, – I attended the conference at which John Bruton spoke. While Mr Bruton understandably is accorded full coverage for his praise for John Redmond and John Dillon in taking the Home Rule Bill to the statute book on September 18th, 1914, it was made quite clear at the conference that this was a mere parliamentary achievement which would never achieve reality. A speaker from the floor outlined James Joyce’s contention that British political leaders from Gladstone to Asquith never seriously intended to accede to home rule to Ireland but were stringing the Irish Parliamentary Party along.
This Joycean view was substantiated by Ronan Fanning, at the conference, based on his book Fatal Path, which studied the process from the British government records.
It is a pity that in his attempt to bolster the standing of John Redmond, John Bruton has to seek to undermine the heroic revolution of Easter 1916. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY J JORDAN,
Gilford Road,
Dublin 4.