Sir, - In his review of the recent book, The Cosgrave Legacy by Stephen Collins, Fergus Pyle looks upon the difficulties of W.
T.Cosgrave and his son Liam through the magnifying end of the glass and views their achievements at best with the glass inverted or ignores them altogether.
Mr Pyle is a veritable Torquemada of political criticism. He fails to give W.T. Cosgrave credit for the establishment of democracy in the fledgling state 75 years ago. Although the early 30s saw the rise of dictatorship in many European countries, W.T. Cosgrave ensured that Ireland maintained an unarmed police force and civilian control of the Army. In 1932, the first transfer of power in the new state was entirely peaceful and democratic.
W.T., like his son Liam, feared praise as others feared neglect. Neither men were ever pompous or high flown. They sought no elevation in any exterior sense though their inner meaning and integrity was loftiness itself. They were politicians that emancipated politics from all tinsel and trumpery.
The following lines from Horace may apply:
Not thus did Romulus command
Nor such was bearded Cato's law,
The ancient worthies of the land
A rule of the far different saw;
Small was the cost they called their own
But vast the public splendour shown.
(from "On the Luxury of his
Age")
-Yours, etc.,
17 Grosvenor Place, Rathmines,
Dublin 6.