Madam, - Tom Fewer's conclusion (Irishman's Diary, March 25th) that "the first World War derailed John Redmond's Home Rule victory" is open to argument. In contrast it is difficult not to agree with Gerald Morgan's conclusion (Letters, March 24th) that the Rising of Easter 1916 was provoked by "the failure of the British to respect the democratic mandate for Irish home rule".
The reason that the island of Ireland did not achieve self-rule in 1914 was that the British Liberal government backed down when Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative party, expressly supported unionist threats of civil war against it. Nearly half a million Ulster unionists signed a "Covenant" in September 1912 to "use all means necessary" including civil war to prevent the Home Rule Act from being implemented.
Bonar Law made no bones about the fact that he would support them in their civil war. This happened in what was at the time the most powerful and most populous empire in the world. It also happened despite the fact that the Home Rule Act was passed by the imperial parliament and signed into law by the king.
That the leader of the 1916 rebellion, Patrick Pearse, went from speaking from Home Rule platforms in 1912 to the GPO in 1916 indicates how alienated some sections of nationalist opinion became as a result of Bonar Law's backing for civil war against Home Rule.
English historians acknowledge that Bonar Law's action then was an act of treason.When Gerald Morgan blames the rebels for shattering "the unity of Irish nationalism in the tragic years that were to follow" 1916 and Tom Fewer concludes that "the first World War derailed John Redmond's Home Rule victory" both ignore the effect of the Ulster Covenant and the treason of Bonar Law. - Yours, etc,
A. LEAVY, Sutton, Dublin.