Madam, – Congratulations to Fr Séamus Murphy SJ (“It’s time to leave behind 1916 and the ‘forever’ War”, Opinion, May 12th) for exposing the self-delusional, self-righteous fantasy of Irish nationalism vis-a-vis Irish unionism.
The 1916 Rising, far from being a glorious blow for Irish freedom, was in fact a shameful attempt to force the unionist people into all-Ireland Home Rule.
Our subsequent veneration of 1916 violence has certainly encouraged many young republican hot-heads to take up violence in every generation since 1916.
It’s time for us nationalists to grow up, acknowledge our mistakes and denounce all violence in pursuit of Irish unity, both past and present. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Fr Séamus Murphy’s article asking us to leave the 1916 Rising behind is in strong contrast to what I, and many Irish boys, heard in Christian Brothers’ schools in the past, when the 1916 insurgents were held up as models of Catholic virtue without any attempt being made to examine, from a Catholic viewpoint, whether the Rising, with much loss of innocent civilian life in Dublin, satisfied any of the conditions for a just war.
In what the Brothers told us, often in Christian doctrine classes, Irish political violence was seamlessly intertwined with unchallengeable Catholic dogma.
Later secondary education from priests mercifully did not, as I remember, include this political conditioning.
I agree with Fr Murphy, and, like him, I have to regret that this adulation for the actions of the men of 1916 still persists.
I wish we would grow up.
Like Fr Murphy too, I had relatives who took up arms for political independence in Ireland. But I am also the maternal grandson of a sergeant in the RIC who was no villain and who did not hurt, much less kill, anybody for any cause. – Yours, etc,