Sir, - I read with great interest your recent full-page spread on various 1798 commemorations. I was particularly struck by the subtitle: "Are the 1798 commemorations just highlighting current sectarian divides?"
As secretary of the 1798 Commemoration Service Committee in Mountainstown, Navan, Co Meath, I would like to point out that this is far from our aim. We are organising a great ecumenical Service of Reconciliation on Saturday July 4th, at 11.30 a.m. to which many clergy and politicians of all denominations and political affiliations have already been invited.
Many Croppies were buried in and around Mountainstown following a severe battle on July 14th, 1798. It is our fervent hope that this act of worship will help heal the wounds of those Wexford people and descendants in Meath as we look back to that extraordinary and terrifying time, and that the Croppies' souls will rest in peace. - Yours, etc., William J. Ritchie,
The Rectory, Kells, Co Meath.