Madam, - It was a surprise to find, in an otherwise admirable obituary of Henry Boylan (The Irish Times, June 9th), the statement that he regarded Wolfe Tone as naive for thinking "it would be possible to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter under the common name of Irishman. [ Tone] didn't realise the deep-rooted antagonism of the Protestants and Dissenters to being allied to the rest of Ireland".
Apart from the fact that this may not have been Boylan's last word on Tone (there is no hint of naivety in the latest edition of his Dictionary of Irish Biography), it is a contentious opinion hardly suited to an obituary.
In the first place, not all Protestants and Dissenters displayed this "deep-rooted antagonism". In Tone's time, many prominent members of these confessions supported Catholic emancipation (Charlemont, Grattan, even Castlereagh). Others, attracted by the new French idea of equality, were prepared to take radical action against a government that oppressed their Catholic fellowcountrymen.
Conservatives and supporters of change alike saw the three traditions in Ireland as inextricably yoked together, and not simply allied (which would imply a voluntary relationship), as Boylan suggested.
The origin of the "deep-rooted antagonism" among Protestants was the insecurity they felt about the benefits they derived from religious persecution and land expropriations in earlier centuries. Its mirror image among Catholics was their insecurity as tenants-at-will and their antagonism to continuing discrimination and privilege. A statesman who wanted to free the nation from these antagonisms would have worked to eliminate discrimination, privilege and the worst abuses of the land system.
Instead, throughout the 19th century, most of those best-placed to lead the nation, namely the Ascendancy, resisted land reform, fought every effort to reduce privilege and even fomented sectarianism to counter the progress of democracy. Ultimately, the now-radicalised antagonisms had to be "solved" by a crude territorial division that simply entrenched them in both states. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels, Belgium.