Sir, - It is only with the greatest effort that I can contain myself to write a courteous letter to you, but I do so reluctantly to try to meet the high standards for which your Letters page is noted. I refer to the Irishman's Diary of July 22nd by Kevin Myers, in which he took a metaphorical hatchet to the character, aspirations and motives of Patrick Pearse.
Pearse, along with many others, did what he had to do because democracy was not seen to be working. And he was/is in good company. George Washington, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Makarios, Menachem Begin, Jomo Kenyatta, to name but a few, "took up the gun" to free their respective countries from imposed foreign domination. All of them subsequently went on to be democratically elected to the highest office in their countries. Two of them, Begin and Mandela, were later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Given this famous list of "gunmen", who is to say that Pearse would not have gone on to be elected to similar high office in this country?
Mr Myers ended his article by asking: "So what was it about this man which appeals to today's democrats? Was his almost Oedipal loathing of England sufficient to elevate him to sainthood? And is that, at heart, the core of the Pearse cult?" He is looking on the wrong side of the coin here. Pearse was half-English (like many other Irish patriots) but we Irish do not hold it against him. Patrick Pearse will be remembered long after Kevin Myers is forgotten. - Yours, etc.,
Peter Pallas, Ennis, Co Clare.