Sir, - One of the infuriating things about the opponents of the proposed museum in Tipperary is that they tend to see everything in Irish history in black and white. No shades of grey are allowed. The fact that tens of thousands of Irishmen responded to John Redmond's call to serve in the British army in the first World War, and that a substantial number of them passed through the barracks in Tipperary, is usually dismissed as an example of the subservient mentality from which the IRA liberated us. Even the Civil War can be explained away as a plot by "perfidious Albion" to divide the noble Gael at the moment when the great prize - a 32county, independent republic - was there for the taking, if only he had been prepared to fight on a bit longer, of course!
Despite all this, we cannot ignore the dark deeds of the Irish Civil War and the destruction of the barracks in Tipperary counts among the darkest of all. This act of madness deprived Tipperary and the new State of a significant economic asset. The barracks could have become a centre for the new Irish army and provided employment for the local people during the depressed years of the 1920s and 1930s. I wonder if the IRA veterans ever asked themselves what the point of it all was in the economic wasteland of post-independence Tipperary.
The museum project is a sincere attempt to derive some economic benefit for Tipperary from the presence of the barracks in the town. John J. Hasset, one of the museum's most fervent opponents, in a letter to The Irish Times (April 22nd) stated that "the period from 1914 to 1922 in Ireland requires that history is recorded as it was and not interpreted for us by people in the media with their own agendas and outlook." I could not agree more; and provided that the proposed museum gives due recognition to the role of the British military based in Tipperary barracks in the repression of the local population during the War of Independence, I don't see how anyone could seriously object to the proposal.
Surely, 75 years after the formation of the State, we are sufficiently secure in our identity to come to our own conclusions about the period 1914 to 1922? Let's stop the sniping. Give the project a chance. - Yours, etc., Peter Hennessy,
Monour, Galbally, Tipperary.