Madam, - Charles Lysaght's admiration for John Redmond (Opinion & Analysis, September 1st) leads him to exaggerate what was certainly a considerable achievement.
It is very doubtful whether, even without the Easter Rising, Redmond's approach could have kept Ireland united on a common loyalty to the British Empire.
The Ulster Unionists had threatened civil war against a very limited form of such a measure and it was likely that they and their allies would have won a majority at Westminster if Britain won the first World War, as, indeed it did.
The bases for the partition of Ireland at home and in Britain went deeper than was understood by any opponent of the parliamentary union apart from James Connolly.
Nor was it simply "persuasion and compromise" that discredited Redmond in Ireland after Easter 1916. To prove his country's loyalty to the British war effort he had made many statements that were untrue (such as, for example, that Ireland had effective Home Rule, rather than the promise thereof) and which the aftermath of the Rising exposed as such.
The Rising itself could not prevent partition, but it did help ensure that the larger part of Ireland would get more than was offered under the Home Rule Act.
- Yours, etc,
DR O'CONNOR LYSAGHT, Clanawley Road, Dublin 5.