Sir, - Two contributors have come to the defence of Sean MacBride following my article, "At the disposal of the Archbishop", in which I published the correspondence which passed between MacBride and John Charles McQuaid during his years as Clann na Poblachta leader and a TD. Anthony Jordan (November 22nd), while acknowledging that MacBride was obsequious towards the archbishop, faults me for ignoring his lifelong credentials as a republican and his fear that he might "fall foul of the major power in the land, the Catholic Church". But it was precisely because MacBride pulled rank as a republican that he deserves to have his credentials questioned in the light of his deference to McQuaid.
The hallmark of a true republican is surely someone who believes in the sovereignty and equality of the people. In the Irish case there is the further requirement - especially from someone such as MacBride who banged the anti-Partition drum louder than all comers - that they do nothing which would give succour to those Ulster unionists who had rejected rule from Dublin because they asserted that it would prove to be rule from Rome.
Mr Jordan's suggestion that MacBride was engaged in deft manoeuvring to avoid being condemned by the Vatican, I find unsatisfactory. That might explain one promise to McQuaid to be at his disposal: but four such promises over a decade surely reveals something else.
But there is a further reason why it is fair to question MacBride's republicanism. It was he who insisted at his very first Cabinet meeting in 1948 that the Inter-Party government send a telegram of "filial loyalty" to the Pope as their first act. And when the government secretary, Maurice Moynihan, argued against this on the grounds that no sovereign government should make such a promise, it was MacBride who insisted that this very sound - and, incidentally, republican - advice be ignored.
The full telegram reads: "On the occasion of our assumption of office and of the first Cabinet meeting, my colleagues and myself desire to repose at the feet of your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and of our devotion to your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ, and to strive for the attainment of a social order in Ireland based on Christian principles."
Catriona Lawlor's article, "MacBride felt views of Church had to be taken into account" (News Features, November 20th) contents itself with summarising MacBride's preferred self-assessment of his career. That he emerges from this scrutiny without blemish is scarcely surprising.
Ms Lawlor quotes MacBride's complaint to me on air that our radio interview was "grossly the most unfair interview that I've ever had". MacBride, as a lifelong barrister, should have appreciated that I was merely inviting him to reconcile his constant rejection of the Ulster Unionist slogan that "Home Rule would be Rome Rule" with his telegram to the Pope and his behaviour during the Mother and Child crisis. Ms Lawlor repeats MacBride's line that he had merely insisted that the "views of the Hierarchy ought to be taken into account".
What MacBride found unfair was that I corrected him by quoting from the Dail Debate of 1951, reminding him that he did not merely believe that the bishops' opinions should be taken into account, but rather that, as a Catholic, he felt "bound to give obedience to the rulings of our Church and of our Hierarchy". Had I known then of the tone of his letters to McQuaid, our interview would have been even more interesting. - Yours etc.,
John Bowman, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.