Sir, - In your edition of October 5th, Fintan O'Toole virtually set himself up as devil's advocate against the recent beatification of Edmund Ignatius Rice. One of his charges against their founder seems to be that the Presentation and Christian Brothers fostered nationalism among the boys in the Brothers' schools.
Rice was an Irish speaker, but like O'Toole himself, he failed to ascribe any importance to the Irish language. The schools set up in much of Ireland provided an effective education for indigent Catholic boys. Due to Rice's lack of vision, it was in fact an English education.
So, contrary to his devil's advocacy, the Christian Brothers can be thanked for helping the cultural conquest of Ireland to make an unprecedented advance. By the end of the last century, Ireland had become predominantly English speaking.
During the last decade of that century the non sectarian Connradh na Gaeilge set up a demand for the teaching of Irish. It must be admitted that the Brothers did useful work in meeting that demand. Ironically enough, they had already helped the process of anglicisation to acquire a momentum that had almost become unstoppable.
On this side of the water, your guru is rapidly acquiring kudos as an expert who can be relied upon to provide opinions acceptable to an English readership. Perhaps he should abandon his devil's advocate role. He could usefully apply pressure on the British Council to join the campaign for the canonisation of Blessed Edmund, because of his success in spreading the English language. - Yours, etc.,
East Ham,
London €6 3LZ.