Sir, – Seán McDonagh (June 25th), responding to James Connolly Heron's "Why we should pay tribute to the 1916 leaders" (Opinion & Analysis, June 24th), speaks disparagingly of Mr Connolly's stated view that "no mandate was required for the violence of Easter week, a view that has informed the century-long 1916 legacy of political violence inflicted on this island".
Mr McDonagh is clearly questioning the legitimacy of the 1916 Rising.
May I remind Mr McDonagh that it was British terror in Ireland that had no mandate and revolutionaries by definition act first, then seek a retrospective mandate, which is what was given to Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election. This election was the first democratic plebiscite to pass judgment on events of 1916 and Sinn Féin, which espoused separation from Britain, received a massive electoral endorsement, winning 75 of the 103 seats.
The armed rebellion of 1916 was formally and massively endorsed.
Either way, British rule in Ireland was a product of conquest, not of democracy, and therefore devoid of authority.
The right to resist foreign occupation does not necessarily stem from the ballot box. There is a long-established and internationally recognised right of people to resist foreign occupation, as expressed in UN resolutions 3070 and 3103, which acknowledge the status of combatants struggling against colonial domination and the rights of people to self-determination. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.
Sir, – Sean McDonagh believes that James Connolly and his comrades introduced violence into Ireland in 1916. Some professional commentators have peddled that line for a generation. The Belfast newspaper the Northern Whig reported on June 4th, 1913, some months before the foundation of the Irish Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers: "Almost everybody in Belfast knows that importation of arms into Belfast has been going on regularly for more than a year and a half. A good many thousand army rifles have been received and distributed during that period . . . Rifles, and not only rifles, but machine guns and a large quantity of ammunition have reached Ulster from many sources and under various aliases".
Speaking of the Ulster Covenant on May 17th, 1913, in Belfast, Sir Edward Carson had said, “The Covenant was a challenge to the Government and they dare not take it up. It was signed by great lawyers . . . It was signed by soldiers in uniform and policemen in uniform, and men in the pay of the Government and they dare not touch them”.
In 1918 a collection of statements by Carson and his parliamentary colleagues was published under the title A Grammar of Anarchy but was promptly banned by the British government, of which Carson had been a member since 1915.
In recent years the pamphlet has been republished and has not been re-banned, so far. I’d recommend it to anyone attempting to form a balanced view of the history of these islands this past century. – Yours, etc,
DONAL KENNEDY,
London.