Sir, - The Taoiseach's oration on Sunday, October 14th and David Andrews's column of October 6th amply demonstrate how "professional" politicians can distort historical fact to suit a purpose. The Taoiseach sought to justify the War of Independence and the consequent use of violence by ascribing the same reasons for and likening it to the American War of Independence.
As any student of the history and reasons for that war knows, the central grievance of the American colonists was the imposition of taxation without the right to representation. Unlike the American colonists, the Irish people had the right to elect by secret ballot, and did return MPs to Westminster. Sinn FΘin neither sought nor obtained a mandate from the people in the general election of 1918 to go to war, and it is little wonder that four years later, an overwhelming majority voted for candidates supporting the peace treaty with Britain.
David Andrews described the first World War as a tiff between three monarchs and ascribed to the Irish volunteers who fought and died in that war the ultimate legacy of another world conflict, thereby perpetuating the myth that their sacrifice had nothing to do with a defence of democracy, the rights of small nations or the struggle for self-government.
His portrait of the Great War omitted any reference to the fact that Italy, France, Britain and the United States were parliamentary democracies and that George V had so little power he was unable to persuade his own government to save his cousin, the Tsar.
In his oration, the Taoiseach referred to fair-minded people. As a nation come of age, is it not time at this remove from those tragic events that when speaking of them, the politicians should practice and preach parity of esteem. - Yours, etc.,
Bernard J. Barton, Crosthwaite Park East, D·n Laoghaire, Co Dublin.