Madam, - Diarmuid Ferriter's analysis of Eamon de Valera's legacy (Opinion & Analysis, August 27th) deserves some amplification. The former taoiseach's communitarian vision is only one of his many virtues that can be usefully contrasted with our own tired times.
At a time when a shallow hostility to the United States too often passes for public debate, de Valera's celebration of quintessentially American models of federalism, constitutionalism and judicial review has its own dignity. His insistence at the League of Nations in 1936 that "economic and financial sanctions can be made effective only if we are prepared to back them up by military measures" suggests a diplomatic maturity far in advance of anything our own crypto-pacifist "anti-war movement" could muster.
In the light of recent developments in our peace process, I'm inclined to think that the person who would gain most from pondering de Valera's legacy is the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern. While he may profit little from reading about his predecessor's fascination with tillage farming, the tuiseal gineadach or Sir William Rowan's theory of quaternions, I think he would do well to study de Valera's approach to violent republicanism.
The contrast between the two prime ministers' dealings with armed militias is as striking as it is depressing. De Valera spent roughly four years (1932-36) coaxing the then IRA out of business. He dropped this policy when he realised that "of course, there are people who are such that, unless you do everything they want, they will never be satisfied. There are such. You cannot possibly please them."
Mr Ahern has spent eight years trying to talk the Provisional IRA out of business but has shown none of his predecessor's toughness or moral clarity.
Where de Valera punished the murderers of gardaí with execution, Mr Ahern told Dáil Éireann that he was willing to sanction the release of the McCabe murderers not because he wanted to, but because Provisional Sinn Féin made it a deal-breaker.
The Taoiseach's humiliation at the hands of the so-called "Columbia Three" (almost certainly a PIRA active service unit exported from the killing fields of south Armagh) should be contrasted with his predecessor's pitiless pursuit of those who started a bombing campaign in Britain in 1939. Article 8 of de Valera's Constitution, coupled with his Offences Against the State Act, declared war on the very existence of self-appointed militias who arrogated to themselves the right to murder Irish Protestants without a mandate.
Mr Ahern is currently poised to ignore the Constitution and effectively rescind the legal ban on the PIRA in return for yet one more "historic initiative" that will not involve the disbandment of an organisation guilty of what the late Gerry Fitt once characterised as "the most bloodthirsty, brutal, callous crimes which have shamed the name of Ireland everywhere".
De Valera lived to see the emergence of the Provisionals in the 1970s and saw no reason to amend his earlier characterisation of Sinn Féin as "a convenient cover for other activities". His successor, however, works feverishly to install this party as senior partners in a tribal executive in Northern Ireland that is also to be handed control of the local constabulary, to do with as they please.
For someone who was blind for much of his premiership, de Valera saw certain things more clearly than his famously canny successor. - Yours, etc,
JOHN-PAUL McCARTHY, Hollymount Estate, Cork.