Sir, Kevin Myers raps me (June 12th), for using the phrase "rabidly republican" to describe his family's politics in a Sunday Times piece on my Channel 4 programme on revisionism. But he makes too much of a singly sloppy adjective. And I meant well as I hope will become clear when I put the phrase in context and add a couple of points. First, a rabidly republican family, where I come from in Cork, usually refers to a Fianna Fail family, whose forebears were active in the War of Independence, and who are now rhetorical republicans.
Second, I was making the point that most of the revisionists who took part in the programme John A. Murphy, Eilis O Hanlon, Sean O Callaghan - came from a republican background similar to mine. Finally, I added Kevin to the list to confound his critics. Because he speaks with a slightly posh accent, and has strong pluralist politics I have often heard him dismissed - as is Conor Cruise O'Brien - by people who believe he comes from a West Brit background and who do not know his father did his bit for Ireland. Perhaps I should have taken his family off the "rabidly" republican list. But a newspaper article is frequently too short for footnotes, and as a columnist himself he must know the temptation to bed terse. - Yours etc.,
Monkstown,
Co Dublin.