A chara, - When the death of Darrell Figgis is referred to, the phrase "backstreet abortion" is often brought up in relation to his fiancé's death. Yet the verdict of a London coroner's court at the time was that Rita North died from peritonitis, cause unknown.
As Sandra McAvoy (April 25th) avers, Miss North's doctor certainly claimed she had admitted to a self-administered abortion. But the case files also show that a (legal) operation by her doctor and a surgeon to remove her already deceased child was severely botched on two accounts, the details of which make horrific reading. A resultant b-coli infection may have equally been the true cause of her tragic death, and abnormalities in Miss North's womb (a bi-corneal uterus) may point to a natural miscarriage.
Darrell Figgis himself had already been persona non grata in the new Free State: Cosgrave, O'Higgins and Blythe repeatedly used him as a butt of their jokes and a target for their venom in Leinster House, and Figgis's views tended to subvert the legitimacy that Cosgrave's government attempted to forge for its rule. However distasteful the manner of Figgis's suicide, it was matched by the manner in which the members of Free State Dáil did not see fit to vote any condolences on the death of their fellow deputy.
Until I travelled to London four weeks ago to find Figgis's grave in West Hampstead Cemetery, his headstone lay under half a foot of soil. When I eventually uncovered the small, flat headstone, its simple and ironic inscription was revealed: "In Loving Memory of Darrell Figgis/ died October 25th 1925/ Not gone from memory or from love, but to our Father's home above".
Given the importance of "the graves of patriot men and women" in the Irish nationalist tradition, it is particularly telling that, for all his achievements, Figgis is remembered only by a monument which had become completely subsumed by the earth until this month.
Figgis was far from being a saint or model patriot, but in spite of several genuinely questionable public and private decisions, he should at least be remembered for dedicating the best part of his life to the cause of Ireland and her freedom. - Is mise,
BREANDÁN Ó CORRÁIN, Carraigín na Pluiboige, Cionn tSáile, Contae Chorcaí.