Sir, - What a truly extraordinary race we Irish are, as perfectly exampled by yesterday's paper (October 2nd). On page 13 I am told that Che Guevara, who to my knowledge was a communist agent provocateur involved not only in acts of terrorism in his own native Cuba, but also in a number of South American states, was a great man looking for adventure, sex and the meaning of life. And on turning the page I learn that Kevin Barry, who I have long believed was a courageous young man who fought and died to bring freedom to this land of ours, was, in fact, a terrorist who over the passage of time has mistakenly been "awarded" the mantle of Irish martyr.
Why is it that we feel that we must acknowledge the "greatness" of a man who died thousands of miles from these shores fighting on behalf of an ideology which is abhorrent to the majority of the people of this land yet, by the same token, may not even acknowledge the brave sacrifice of those 10 men who acted in line with the views of the vast majority of their peers as expressed by the results of the 1918 General Election?
Has Ireland, and the world in general, become so politically correct that we may now only extol the virtues of those who died for reasons foreign to us and deride those who died for our benefit? - Is mise,
Paul Conlon, Lucan, Co Dublin.