Sir, - The discussion of the re-interment of the Old IRA volunteers has omitted one important element of the historical context of their actions. The Anglo-Irish war occurred subsequent to four great campaigns of peaceful and constitutional protest against the British system of government in Ireland. These protests, beginning in 1840, were O'Connell's Repeal Movement, Parnell's Home Rule Movement, Redmond's Home Rule Movement and the Sinn FΘin Election of 1918. Many long-lived men and women of the 1920s had lived through all four.
The resort to conflict, pace Padraic Pearse, was exceptional in modern Irish history, and sophisticated political protest was the norm. The uncomfortable truth is that what a strong and prosperous Britain would not concede to peaceful political action was conceded by a Britain enfeebled by the first World War in the context of a democratically mandated conflict, at a very small cost in casualties.
If the Anglo-Irish conflict of 1919-1922 is compared with the wars and revolutions that founded the modern American, German or French states, the sheer peacefulness of the whole business is its salient feature.
This is not to diminish the sacrifice of the men and women who took part in it. It is merely to highlight, in the light of a sound historical understanding, the hypocrisy involved in any criticism of them which ignores this context. - Yours, etc.,
Frank Fitzpatrick, St Kevin's Parade, Dublin 8.