Sir, – For many years, I have been astonished to see fans from Cork waving the Confederate battle flag at GAA matches. It was (and remains) far more than a rebel flag. It is a flag of treason and, worse still, of slavocracy.
Those fans may not know it but the leaders of the Confederacy had big plans. They wanted to extend the Confederacy into the Caribbean and Central America. Gen Robert E Lee did not demur when Davis issued a proclamation on December 23rd, 1862, ordering that all “negro slaves captured in arms” be sent back to their states to be treated as slaves in revolt, ie put to death. Nor did Lee protest when Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest in April 1864 ordered the execution of 300 black soldiers in the Union Army following their surrender at Fort Pillow. Forrest would go on to found the Ku Klux Klan after the war. Monuments to these truly vile men are an insult to black and white alike, and flags that purport to give them honour have no place in Cork. – Yours, etc,
FRANK MacGABHANN,
Skerries, Co Dublin.