Dev not the last commandant

Madam, - Cllr Michael McGrath (FF) quotes with approval two passages from a speech by the Taoiseach: "Ireland's history..

Madam, - Cllr Michael McGrath (FF) quotes with approval two passages from a speech by the Taoiseach: "Ireland's history. . .must be beyond narrow party-political posturings"; and "Eamon de Valera, the last surviving commandant of Easter Week. . ."

The last surviving commandant of Easter Week was W.J. Brennan-Whitmore, who died in 1977, two years after Dev.

I suspect that the myth that Dev was the last is kept alive in Fianna Fáil circles as a source of reflected glory. It therefore itself ranks as a bit of "narrow party-political posturing". - Yours, etc,

MICHAEL DRURY, Avenue Louise, Brussels.