Sir, - Bernard J. Barton (October 25th), may know his American history. His knowledge of Irish (and, indeed European) history is distinctly inadequate.
He states that "the Irish people had the right to elect by secret ballot and did return MPs to Westminster". He ignores the fact that, for a third of a century, the clear mandate of the bulk of these MPs for Irish Home Rule had been rejected, ignored or, most recently, postponed until a new election could return a British majority opposed to the Home Rulers. There is more than one way of disenfranchising a nation.
He says that Sinn FΘin had no mandate to go to war. In fact, it had a mandate to negotiate with the British government. That body, in triumphalist pride after its victory over Germany, saw no reason to negotiate and preferred to impose on Ireland a settlement, that no elected Irish MP wanted, through military means.
As for the previous World War, it may surprise Mr Barton to know that, if suffrage rights are a keynote of democracy, then the German federal Reichstag and its Austrian ally were both more democratically-based than the parliaments of Britain and Italy. The two latter being elected on household, rather than manhood suffrage.
Finally, it is known, now, that it was George V who opposed successfully his government's proposal that Britain give asylum to his cousin, Tsar Nicholas and his family. - Yours, etc.,
D r O'Connor Lysaght, Clanawley Road, Killester, Dublin 5.
