I was intrigued by Ruth Dudley Edwards statement during the the Prime Time debate on RTÉ 1 on Wednesday, 23rd March, when she said that she was proud of the 240,000 Irishmen who had fought in WWI saying that they saved us from terrible consequences that would have ensued if Germany had won the Great War.

While the words on the banner hung in front of Liberty Hall (‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland’) still resonate a century on, representing the values of a patriotic anti-imperialist neutrality, they mask an historical reality that was a good deal more complex than is generally allowed (Letters, July 4).