Sir, – Sarah Glennane (June 11th) complains of the possible impact of “gardaí in full riot gear” on some of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh’s grandchildren at his funeral.
I knew Ruairí Ó Brádaigh (not terribly well) but well enough to have occasionally played cards with him about 60 years ago when he lived beside Croke Park in Jones’s Road. At that time, he was a pleasant, if single-minded, young man.
I am compelled to contrast Ms Glennane’s concern with that of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh himself. Many years later I heard him being asked on radio for his reaction to the fact that some innocent children had just been killed in a savage and, no doubt, cowardly bomb outrage in Northern Ireland. My earlier impressions of him plummeted when he informed the country that there always were “inevitable casualties in war”. Is it possible that those dead children might have been somebody’s grandchildren? – Yours, etc,
LIAM O’ MUIRI,
Kelston,
Foxrock, Dublin 18.