Madam, - If a statue of a famous Irishman were to be erected on a new pillar to replace the Spire in O'Connell Street, as Gerald Morgan suggests (October 8th), there is one obvious candidate.
The street already displays monuments to two great leaders of constitutional nationalism, O'Connell and Parnell. Not far away, Butt Bridge commemorates the founder of the Home Rule movement. O'Connell's monument was unveiled while Parnell led that movement; Parnell's in turn was unveiled by John Redmond with Home Rule in sight.
Redmond, the last in the line, received no monument, despite having succeeded where the others had failed. The judgment of history told against him for many years, but, in the light of the new relationships on the island, history may now be having second thoughts.
The placing of a statue of Redmond on a new pillar would be both an act of restorative justice and the completion of a great triptych, on the capital's main street, of what might be termed "non-predatory nationalism". - Yours etc,
DERMOT MELEADY, Dublin 3.