Madam, - Peace, like fresh air or clean water, we too often take for granted; so let's celebrate it, joyfully.
It is good that memories of the 49,400 Irish dead of the first World War are emerging from dusty attics to find a proper place in Ireland's narrative. But as this happens, and as calls emerge to revisit Ireland's act of remembrance, we should take a moment to think about the kind of event we want which reflects our culture and our aspirations for the future.
We can openly remember now the wasted lives of teenage great-uncles in ways that were too awkward before, but different traditions on this island have little common ground about what we might be celebrating if we do have a national Irish act of remembrance.
If the dead could speak, they would surely ask to not to be forgotten; but would they dwell only on horror, pathos and politics? Wouldn't they want us to celebrate the life and peace they lost? As I watched on TV the mournful ceremonies from London's Whitehall Cenotaph, moving and dignified though they may be, I felt that we could and should do something different here.
That there are few recent precedents in this Republic for such an event was brought home to me when I gathered with perhaps two dozen others in Castlebar's Mayo Peace Park last Tuesday at 11am. It was an impromptu gathering. We said the Lord's Prayer. Various people read war poetry. A wreath was laid. We went back to our lives.
The Peace Park is only a month or two old, and such a gathering hadn't happened before. But it made me think.
In some dreary November before too long, let's invite Germans to Dublin (they still have no such event of their own). Let's invite the British too for that matter, and the entire rank and file of the DUP. Heck, let's invite the whole of Europe to a festival of remembrance that celebrates our European peace - a wholehearted, welcoming blaze of music, colour, dancing, life, a few pints, a very late night and a taxi home. Sure, have a slot in the morning for uniforms and brass bands, and a time for priests to remind us of what Jesus said about love. Let's shed hot tears for the mothers who never saw their sons again and then get on to the main event - a city-wide celebration of all that peace brings and war destroys.
That should be our Irish response - an almighty annual wake; and the spirits of the 49,400, and all those who have died in our miserable history of war and troubles, will surely be cheering us on as we commit ourselves, now, and for all time, to making peace. - Yours, etc,