Sir, – Michael McDowell characterises the Northern Ireland Troubles of 1968-98 as “a form of civil war between Orange and Green”, and so concludes – quite correctly, in my opinion – that the IRA campaign of violence at that time was “wrong morally and politically” (“Political violence was the decisive factor in the creation of the Irish Free State,” Opinion, August 12th).
But – and here I disagree with him profoundly – he suggests that the violence of the period of the Irish Revolution, 1912-22, was justified on the basis that it was, as he rather inelegantly puts it, “a matter of ‘Brits out’.”
The distinction he thus makes between 1912-22 and 1968-98 is not, in my opinion, valid. The obstacle to granting Home Rule to Ireland in 1912 was the opposition of both northern and southern unionists.
The republican violence which followed the denial of Home Rule in the face of that opposition was, therefore, also “a form of civil war” – and that civil war was not only between Orange and Green but was also, specifically in Easter week 1916, a challenge to the authority of the democratically elected leaders of the Irish people, the Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond.
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It was an intra-Green civil war as well as a civil war between Orange and Green, and was accordingly even more morally and politically reprehensible than the violence of the Troubles on the criterion that McDowell applies to the Troubles.
In both 1912-22 and 1968-98, the British establishment – for a variety of cultural and other factors – sided with the Orange against the Green. To that extent, there is some justification in the republican view of the Troubles as “a matter of ‘Brits out’.” This, in fact, has been the key slogan employed by republicans in Northern Ireland to justify their campaigns, both political and violent.
Given that “Brits out” is the basis on which McDowell defends the violence of 1912-22, this further blurs the distinction he has tried to make between 1912-22 and 1968-98.
Would Ireland have gained independence without the violence of the Irish Revolution? McDowell thinks not, and I accept that that may account for his unwillingness to condemn the violence of 1912-22.
He rightly takes pride, as I do, in the Irish state that emerged in 1922 and evolved into the mature democracy that we have today. But the end doesn’t justify the means – and there are many who would say that the Good Friday agreement would not have been possible without the violence of 1968-98, and that that justifies the violence of the Troubles. For this reason also, I don’t find the distinction that McDowell draws between the Irish Revolution and the Northern Ireland Troubles convincing.
My contention is that the violence of both the Irish Revolution and the Northern Ireland Troubles are to be condemned as inherently wrong, without regard to the outcomes. Moreover, I believe that a failure to condemn the violence of 1912-22 – indeed, the valorisation of it by the Irish state – enables apologists for the violence of 1968-98, and perhaps for political violence in the future, to claim the high moral ground with some credibility. – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18
