Sir, - Rather than providing a balanced evaluation of Stephen Collins's excellent book, The Cosgrave Legacy the review of it by Fergus Pyle is little more than a partisan attack on Liam Cosgrave and a misrepresentation of his many achievements. Pyle begins bay criticising Liam Cosgrave for resigning his leadership in a way that maximised the party's internal difficulties".
In fact, the subsequent election (June 1981) saw Fine Gael return to government under Liam's successor (Garret FitzGerald) and in November of the following year the party again entered government for a four year term. Before Liam Cosgrave's election as Taoiseach in 1977, Fine Gael had been in opposition for 16 years.
When Pyle sarcastically asks: "What is the Cosgrave legacy?" and describes the era as being "as dead as a dodo", he fails to comprehend the enormous significance of the Sunningdale Power Sharing Executive of 1974. The legacy of this courageous initiative: of Liam Cosgrave would be the 1985 Anglo Irish agreement, which paved the way for the current peace process.
Whilst some politicians of that era held ambivalent views on the armed struggle, Cosgrave bequeathed a culture which unequivocally repudiated all forms of violence for political ends and pioneered the principle of a "negotiated settlement" to Northern Ireland's problems. His legacy in international politics is significant. In 1949, he participated in a government which made this country a fully independent republic. In 1955, as Minister for External Affairs, he oversaw Ireland's entry into the United Nations. Under his stewardship, Ireland truly "took its place among the nations of the world".
In a further attempt to denigrate the Cosgrave led Government of 1973-77, Pyle contends that the Fianna Fail election victory in 1977 was caused by Cosgrave's "misjudgment" in calling an election earlier than necessary. Most serious political commentators attribute the Fianna Fail overall majority in 1977 to the "giveaway manifesto" (eg the enticing promise to abolish rates and road tax) which led the country almost to financial ruin. Cosgrave's contempt for such "false promise politics" has been vindicated by the Irish public, which has never since given Fianna Fail an overall majority.
Far from using "equivocation and ambiguity as a political tool", Liam Cosgrave was a highly respected and highly principled statesman. - Yours, etc.,
Glenmore Park,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.