A chara, - I am truly appalled to read another letter from Padraig O Cuanachain (September 23rd). Is there a shortage of historical correspondents or has an tUasal O Cuanachain become a member of the editorial board?
He accuses the Irish Volunteers who flocked to Flanders as being "misguided". Most of these men left on the prompting of John Redmond. He felt that Ireland had a better chance of achieving post-war Home Rule for all the island if they proved their good faith to Britain by becoming their ally in the conflict. A neutral Ireland could expect very little warmth from Protestant Ulster or Imperial Britain in a post-war scenario, if Ireland left them "alone" in their hour of need.
Given that an tUasal O Cuanachain seems to be an unreconstructed nationalist zealot, I find it surprising that he should criticise as "misguided" attempts to realise the ambition of a Home Rule Parliament in 1914 - the expressed goal of the vast majority of Irish nationalists since 1885. It seems that for him all efforts to achieve anything but a Republic were awfully unpatriotic and simple-minded in the most extreme fashion. This view is foolishly unhistorical as it fails to allow for the fact that the vast majority of Irish people were not convinced of the validity of the Republic until at least 1918. Is Daniel O'Connell or even C.S. Parnell to be dismissed as "misguided" as a result? - Is mise, John Paul McCarthy,
Hollymount Estate, Blarney Road, Corcaigh.