Sir, - Kevin Myers's articles on historical matters are, without doubt, informative and well-researched. By slaughtering some sacred cows and dissipating lovingly-held myths he does history and his readers some service.
During war, massacres are never confined to one side - the passions unleashed put finer points of honour and decency to flight. It is also true that the blood-lust unleashed by the French Revolution influenced events all over the world but especially in Ireland, where nationalist sympathisers actively sought help from France to expel the English.
But there is a big difference between systematic and officially-condoned massacres of unarmed innocent civilians and, say, the killing of the 100 men of the North Cork Militia. For Kevin Myers to lump that episode under the heading of massacre is a travesty.
The skirmish at Oulart took place when the North Corks, previously unchallenged and invincible in their systematic floggings, hangings, torture and pitch-capping, broke and ran when ambushed by the Wexford pikemen. And it surely is naive in the extreme that these brutes, despite their cowardly attempts to save their necks by holding up missals and rosary beads - in all probability souvenirs of war - should expect mercy from the enraged rebels. In fact, it is likely that this pathetic gesture sealed their fate since the rebels would have seen it as blasphemy.
That there were disgruntled landowners, both Protestant and Catholic, who were prepared to welcome the French is without doubt. But the vast majority of the Wexford rebels were ordinary, decent farmers goaded beyond endurance into rebellion; and their clergy, to their eternal credit, fought and died beside them. That they were eventually cut to pieces by grapeshot in the merciless turkey-shoot of Vinegar Hill is no disgrace.
So yes, Mr Myers, next year I and many thousands of Irish men and women will join the people of Wexford in saluting the bravery of the men of Boolavogue who, poorly armed with a few guns and pikes and without any military training, took on the might of the English and sent their armies scurrying all the way back to Dublin. People like Kevin Myers can have no conception of the pride which rightfully floods the hearts of Wexford folk when their heroes line out in an All-Ireland hurling final in Croke Park. But then, how could they?
And as we raise our glasses during another stirring rendition of Boolavogue, we will also be paying tribute to yet another brave and decent man, Fr John Murphy from that same parish who, unlike Captain Swayne, deemed unworthy of honourable mention by Mr Myers, also ended up being burned headless in a tar barrell outside O'Callaghan's shop in the square in Tullow. - Yours, etc.,
Michael O'Farrell,
Bray, Co Wicklow.