Sir, - D. R. Brewster questions the nature of Sinn Fein's mandate in the 1918 General Election (October 9th). The party won a large majority of the seats on a minority of the vote, because of the number of uncontested seats. It is rather sweeping to imply that had these seats been contested. Sinn Fein would not have won them and would not have also increased its share of the vote.
War broke out because the Government not only refused to negotiate on the nature of the independent State, which Sinn Fein was mandated to establish, but because it also attempted to suppress forcibly the movement towards secession. In this, it looked to precedence in the violence it had inflicted on previous occasions to maintain its enforced position.
To draw an analogy between Collins's "tactical use of the armed struggle" in time of war with subsequent illegitimate terrorism is similar to suggesting that Washington, who engaged in a war for which he is honoured by his country, is a progenitor of the domestic terrorism that recently afflicted the US at Oklahoma City. By all means question national shibboleths, where they exist. However, it is unhelpful to distort the past for the purposes of condemnation. - Yours, etc.,
North Great George's Street, Dublin 1.