Ahern ponders the `ironies of history' at Hyde conference'

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said that in times like this, "one has to ponder the ironies of history and the enduring problems caused not just by disarmament, or the lack of it, but by the ever deeper problem of distrust".

Speaking at the Douglas Hyde conference in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, at the weekend, he illustrated his comment by drawing delegates' attention to a letter written by Irish Parliamentary Party MP John Dillon to John Redmond in May 1916. "I do not believe that the nationalists could ever be got to believe that the Ulster men had really surrendered their arms," Dillon wrote.

Dillon, he said, "who was to the Irish Parliamentary Party in some ways what Seamus Mallon is to the SDLP, is an unjustly neglected figure. He was in a real sense the anchor person of the party"

Northern Ireland "is still within reach of an effectively functioning devolved government and other institutions and regardless of setbacks we will get there."

The theme of this year's conference was "Reassessment: Irish Leaders in the 20th Century". The Taoiseach said: "If I ever feel in need of reassessment, all I have to do is open a Sunday newspaper. Sometimes looking forward to what one hopes will be the calm judgment of history is about the only comfort to be derived". The conference's opening address was given by the Taoiseach's adviser, Dr Martin Mansergh, who spoke on "Eamon de Valera - the reputation of a statesman".

He recalled some years ago drafting a speech for a former Fianna Fail leader which included a quotation from de Valera. The quotation was deleted "with the explanation that de Valera is bad news these days".

"It is as if 1958, when the Whitaker White Paper on Economic Development appeared, is treated as the year zero of modern Ireland, not 1916, 1922, 1937 or 1949."

In August 1921, de Valera accepted that the logic of self-determination and consent meant, in his words, "we do not contemplate the use of force" vis-a-vis north-east Ulster. At the de facto level at least, this meant the principle of consent was introduced then and "was not invented for the first time by socalled revisionist politicians in the 1970s or 1980s".

De Valera, he said, "was at serious fault for not backing the result" of the Treaty negotiations. 1922-23 was the worst period in de Valera's life. "It is what he did before the Treaty and after the Civil War that justifies us in regarding Eamon de Valera as a great man."

In discussion afterwards, Prof John A. Murphy said de Valera "was a partitionist and, I'm proud to say, so am I". One of de Valera's great attributes "was that he knew what to do with the IRA compared to the piddling attitude of our latter-day Taoiseach who pleads with the IRA for a statement and that statement is not forthcoming". Speaking in Strokestown House on "The first Dail and Irish Political Development", Dr Brian Farrell traced the survival of this democracy, already the fourth-oldest in Europe, to the long tradition of parliamentary democracy preceding it back to O'Connell. Dr Maurice Manning, addressing "The Dillon Tradition 1848-1969", suggested that James Dillon's "extraordinary example of moral courage" in opposition to Irish neutrality during the second World War was probably a reason he did not become Taoiseach of the inter-party Government in 1948.

Other speakers at the conference included the Sunday Tribune's political editor, Mr Stephen Collins, who spoke on the Cosgraves, Prof John A. Murphy who spoke on John Redmond, Dr Frank Callanan who discussed T.M. Healy, and Dr Greagoir O Duill who spoke on de-Anglicisation: Beartas no Bagairt.

The former Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Donald Caird, conducted a special service at Portahard yesterday to commemorate Douglas Hyde's death 50 years ago on July 12th.