Sir, – Jean O'Sullivan's article is yet another example of a new and disappointing phenomenon ("End hospital trolley crisis to mark 2016", Opinion & Analysis, June 25th).
The Easter Rising of 1916 has now become a kind of transferable baton of righteous indignation. It seems that anyone, with any kind of grievance, can unleash 1916 as a kind of trump card of outrage. I concede that Ms O’Sullivan is genuine in her concern about a very serious national problem. I acknowledge that history allows us to contextualise our present but I also believe that we have descended into a mass hysterical rotating mania in which we constantly muse wildly about what Padraig Pearce would say if the bus is late.
The danger of this is that it trivialises and inevitably misrepresents the leaders of 1916 as well as our current social ills.
I doubt that the leaders of 1916 would have a precise view on HSE budgets or bed management. I can’t imagine that they would worry much about broadband access.
They would probably be too bowled over by all the indoor plumbing to be able formulate a position on water charges.
The fact of the matter is that if Padraig Pearce returned to judge us he would probably deviate wildly from our contemporary values and berate us for our collective lack of Mass attendance. If James Connolly toured our A&Es tomorrow, I am certain that the scourge of drink and drug abuse in this country might well stand out for him. This might in turn lead to altogether more profound questions that extend beyond the realms of budgetary limitations.
Arbitrarily parading the ghosts of 1916 across our newsprint and airwaves does little to address the very real and serious challenges that we face as a nation.
As we do face these challenges we would, perhaps, do well to remember that all of this nation’s greatest achievements arrived through genuine collective effort and a steady commitment to social justice that transcends every historical centenary or anniversary and served to occasion most of them. – Yours, etc,
JOHN McNAMARA,
Sunday’s Well,
Cork.