Sir, - While deprecating the tone in which Mr Myers berates - his correspondents, as though to debate with him was an offence, one must applaud his demand for sources for those tiny details which go to make up history. One of the lessons for historians in events more recent than 1916 is that absolute judgements on any situation are unattainable. All one can do is weight up the evidence as best one can.
Thus, while an eyewitness such as Professor O Briain (Cuimhni cinn, page 179) records that Sean Mac Diarmada was singled out at Richmond Barracks by a detective, Mac Diarmada's biographer, Canon Travers, points out that "all but the most purblind of the DMP in the stations of central Dublin knew him" (Breifne 3, page 36). Neither of these statements is necessarily untrue. - Yours, etc.,
Crosspatrick,
Co Kilkenny.