Sir, – Bertie Ahern's perceptive article may be a little unfair to Lloyd George ("Dev was wrong not to lead the 1921 Treaty talks", Heritage, May 24th).
Anti-Catholic rather than anti-Irish, he had argued unsuccessfully in 1912 that the Home Rule Bill, as originally proposed, should allow individual Ulster counties to vote to remain fully within the United Kingdom.
In retrospect, it is clear that this was the least bad solution that was feasible and might have headed off the subsequent violence.
The concession of dominion status to the Irish Free State in 1921 so offended the Tory supporters of his government that they hounded him out of office some months later. That effectively ended his political career. – Yours, etc,
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CHARLES
LYSAGHT,
Merrion,
Dublin 4.