MacBride And The Archbishop

A chara, - I found John Bowman's piece on Sean MacBride's obsequious correspondence with John Charles McQuaid (News Features, …

A chara, - I found John Bowman's piece on Sean MacBride's obsequious correspondence with John Charles McQuaid (News Features, November 13th) somewhat opportunistic. Using quotations from MacBride to McQuaid which in today's terms would indeed be seen as unacceptable from a senior politician, Bowman states that McQuaid's archive "exposes" MacBride's reputation. He comments that the contemporary record invariably speaks louder than old politicians' memories.

This is true, but it behoves the writer to be cognisant of the wider contemporary scene. Bowman asks three leading questions about MacBride: "Are his credentials as a republican a sham? Or is it yet another example of the chameleon in MacBride? Or is it that he was just tops in hypocrisy?" These are extraordinary questions to posit, on foot of extracts from letters written over a particular time (1947-1954), and from a particular position, about a man whose career spanned many decades.

If John Bowman wishes to posit such fundamental questions about Sean MacBride, then it is his duty as a serious commentator to consider the complete contemporary record. Had he done so, he would have understood where MacBride was coming from and his reasons for ensuring that he as a serious politicians, would not again, fall foul of the major power in the land, the Catholic bishops.

After chairing and launching a political wing of the IRA in 1931, Saor Eire, MacBride was personally isolated when the wrath of W.T. Cosgrave's government, and its briefing of the bishops, led to a joint pastoral from Maynooth. Some lines from it read: "Assembled in Maynooth.. .we cannot remain silent.. .a new organisation entitled `Saor Eire' which is frankly communistic in its aims.. .is but a translation into Irish life, under Bolshevistic tuition, of a similar scheme in use in Russia.. .sinful and irreligious and that no Catholic can lawfully be a member".

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MacBride only escaped condemnation from the Vatican by some deft manoeuvring. He resolved that he would not again be placed in any such position, especially when seeking to run a successful political party.

Some of the contemporary record of Sean MacBride's life is to be found in my biography of the man, published in 1993. - Yours, etc.,

Anthony Jordan, Gilford Road, Dublin 4.