Sir, - Brendan O Cathaoir's recent Irishman's Diary was particularly significant and timely as we move towards truth and reconciliation on this island.
The dictum, "obedience presupposes a legitimate command", was surely put into effect by the humble and lowly priests who rendered spiritual aid to Roger Casement in his final days on earth.
The names of these priests and chaplains in Pentonville - Murnane, McCarroll, Ring, Carey - live on in our collective memory as we approach the winding-up of the Casement affair, in a climate where contradistinction is accentuated; and where the indulgent and disparaging term "mere Irish" assumes a new meaning.
Contradistinction bids us, even as we revere those lowly ones obedient to Christian principles, and compare them to their nominally-superior leader: Cardinal Francis Bourne, voraciously swallowing a black diary, was the other side of the coin. He, in effect, hustled the victim inexorably towards the gallows.
Paradoxically, Roger Casement, in linguistic terms, has become the quintessential "mere Irishman". The word most often used in his 1910 loose-leaf Putumayo diary (NLI) is mere. It is used 63 times; and is a key component in his lexicon. This fact can be "Bourne out" readily in due process and detailed textual analysis.
In contradistinction, the word "mere" is never used in the contending 1910 Black Diary of Western democracy. - Yours, etc.,
Eoin O Maille,
Fitzwilliam Place,
Dublin 2.