Sir, – To say that Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa launched a tradition of terrorism seems an exaggeration. He was one of the loudest advocates of the dynamite campaign of the 1880s, which caused property destruction and one civilian death, but the idea for the attacks came from a number of individuals, mainly brothers Patrick and Augustine Ford of Brooklyn and John McCafferty, a veteran of the American civil war. O'Donovan Rossa was neither the originator nor the mastermind, and the attacks that were organised by him represented less than a third of the campaign, the rest were caused by the Clan na Gael. In 1883 three explosions in Glasgow were organised by the Rossa faction, but one of the main co-ordinators was John Kearney, an agent provocateur on the payroll of the authorities. Both Gladstone and his successor as prime minister sanctioned the use of provocateurs to stir up bogus bomb plots.
O’Donovan Rossa was reckless in his calls for violence, blind to the advantages of the Land League, and his repeated celebrations of dynamite often bordered on parody. Yet to single him out as a precursor of terrorism is to ignore the historical complexity of political violence and the uncomfortable fact that many commemorative events of this decade honour people responsible for a lot more killing and misery. – Yours, etc,
NIALL WHELEHAN,
School of History,
Classics and Archaeology,
University of Edinburgh.