Just one more thing...

This is a brief comment arising out of the Myles Dillon letters published in my blog a few days ago.

 

The initial common-place, family and personal  lines of this blog on Myles Dillon's correspondence  may discourage some of our readers and yet they prove interesting to  me and probably to some of my readers because of the reviving interest in Ireland in the history of the Irish Parliamentary Party and of Parnell and the other leaders of Home Rule. Their endeavours  could easily have led to a peaceful settlement of Ireland's aspirations as an independent country within the Commonwealth if 1916 had never been  organised and initially approved by a handful of individuals such as Clarke, McDermott and Pearse. Nor might the perpetuation of the division of the country have been so compelling and implacable  as a result of the extreme and quixotic measures adopted by these few men. No doubt we shall celebtate the memory of the men of 1916 to confirm their extraordinary sacrifice to their country  but surely history tells us that our celebrations should include a wider spectrum of those men and women who had a diffirent view from the 1916 men but who were equally concerned about Ireland's unique cultural, historical and geographical standing in the world.