Sir, - Dear me, so Professor Senator Joe Lee in his panegyric (May 24th) to the role of Fianna Fail lets it all slip. He is quite content to suggest, or even condone, the notion that up to the 1970s Fianna Fail under de Valera "would not have won so many absolute majorities in seats but for the delicate massaging of constituency boundaries".
Let us be quite straightforward; as a historian of Irish politics Professor Lee's reference should have been to gerrymandering.
Does this strike a chord? It should. After all, the unionists in Northern Ireland undoubtedly practised gerrymandering, particularly in local government and arguably in elections to Stormont too. In London, the district auditor has recently found that Lady Porter and a number of other councillors and officials engaged in a similar practice in Westminster.
Perhaps Professor Lee could explain why gerrymandering is an appropriate description of some pre 1972 unionist behaviour and 1980s activities of Tories in Westminster but Fianna Fail's activities, as described by Prof Lee should be cloaked in euphemism. Are his politics getting in the way of his history? - Yours, etc.,
Professor of Applied
Policy Studies,
University of Ulster.