Sir, – In The Irish Times, Stephen Collins and Michael McDowell recently explored whether the violence of 1916, which eventually became part of the origin story of the Republic of Ireland, was justified. I agreed with Stephen Collins’s view that it was unnecessary and that the changes that followed were inevitable anyway.
That argument is even more valid when it is applied to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, when violence only undermined the idea that an All-Ireland state could be a welcoming home for people who consider themselves both British and Irish.
To commemorate the so-called “decade of centenaries”, which remembered the events around the formation of the two current Irish states, the British Council published a book of essays called Lives Entwined IV. In that volume, I wrote that the period would be better termed a “decade of failures”. No side achieved its stated aims. After all, the Ulster Volunteer Force wanted, ultimately, to keep the whole island in the United Kingdom.
Many people in the Republic continue to justify the violence of the Easter Rising, thanks to the events that followed, but regard the Troubles as wrong. The republican tradition of a minority using force to impose its will on the rest of us, though, inspired the Provisional IRA’s campaign. Similarly, dissident terrorists now argue that they are the true heirs of 1916.
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It is always worth remembering the tragic consequences of choosing conflict. For us it was over 3,600 dead, thousands injured, billions of pounds of damage, deep societal divisions embedded and over 20,000 from all sides imprisoned. All unnecessary and we must ensure it never happens again.
I would argue that the Easter Rising channelled a hatred on this island that still feeds violent causes. It achieved the opposite of making this island a shared homeplace for all its people, keeping the idea alive that you can unite Ireland by blowing other Irish people to bits.
There are other hatreds that need challenged too, but a start would be correcting the myths surrounding Easter 1916 and consigning the hatreds that emerged to the dustbin of history. – Yours, etc,
TREVOR RINGLAND,
Bangor,
Co Down.
