Sir, - What a pity that Katie Donovan's report on the preparation for the bicennential of the 1798 Rebellion used a line drawing that placed the rebellion in a sectarian mould. The Cruikshank caricature of the massacre at Scullabogue was a loyalist interpretation of the event. It continues to be used to exploit and gridlock sectarian fears.
The use of this caricature, with its simplistic sectarian message, does a disservice to the complex, universal issues of the 1798 Rebellion. The Rebellion was not a sectarian jacquerie. Historians have only begun to unravel its tangled origins and hopefully the modern scholarship of people such as Louis Cullen, Thomas Bartlett, Kevin Whelan and Daniel Gahan will continue to present the story in as unbiassed a fashion as possible. - Yours, etc.,
Old Ross,
Co Wexford.