Sir, - Your correspondent, Mr Roddy O'Sullivan (August 22nd) quotes historian Nollaig O'Gadhra as saying that Arthur Griffith was: "in many respects an Irish Gandhi". The observation is pertinent indeed, but one that is unlikely to have support from the present government.
The civil disobedience campaign which attained independence for India owed much of its success to the polemical writings of Ireland's greatest political philosopher, Arthur Griffith. In 1969, a Fianna Fail administration had a stamp struck to mark the centenary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, but in 1971 it refused to pay a similar tribute to the memory of his exemplar, Arthur Griffith. However, in that year and with exquisite cultural correctness it did issue a stamp as an act of homage for the holding of a Eurovision Song Contest. - Yours, etc., CONN SHEEHAN,
Morehampton Terrace, Dublin 4.