Sir, – The Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald’s view that “I don’t think it should be a matter of controversy because somebody wears their poppy or somebody wears their Easter lily” (“McDonald signals she would not attend IRA events as Taoiseach”, News, June 13th) is a welcome change to a narrative which effectively condemned Irish citizens with a British heritage who sought to commemorate their dead lost in both world wars.
It is shameful that British families who lost relatives on Irish ships during the Emergency and who wished to remember their dead by placing poppy wreaths in remembrance, as they would normally do in the UK, felt uneasy at doing so in Dublin at the National Seamen’s memorial on City Quay due to a belief they would be at risk because of the politics. To facilitate our UK relatives, a large plinth with a plaque recording the names of all Irish vessels lost during the second World War was erected in 2001 in the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire. The director, former Royal Navy Cmdr David Childs, suggested that an Irish flag be put on the plaque. That is now on display along with an oak tree planted in their memory in the British Merchant Navy Convoy section of the Arboretum.
The statements by Mary Lou McDonald TD and John Finucane MP are a welcome development and show that Sinn Féin, far from riding two horses, as stated recently by Tánaiste Micheál Martin, is ready to participate in Government. – Yours, etc,
PETER MULVANY,
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Clontarf,
Dublin 3.