Madam, – Niall Meehan’s claim (Opinion, October 12th) that Edward Carson initiated anti-Catholic pogroms centred on Belfast shipyards needs to be challenged.
It has no basis in fact. Edward Carson was on record as saying: “We used to say that we could not trust an Irish parliament in Dublin to do justice to the Protestant minority. Let us take care that that reproach can no longer be made against your parliament, and from the outset let them see that the Catholic minority have nothing to fear from a Protestant majority.” Carson was also an advocate of a Catholic university in Dublin and an admirer of Irish peasant faith, he was not the bigot that Mr Meehan would like to paint him as. – Yours, etc,
