Protestant decline tied in with collapse of the old order — not sectarianism

I READ with interest the letter from Robin Bury headlined ‘Protestants targeted by IRA men with a personal agenda during War of Independence’ (Irish Examiner, July 10).

It followed on from an interesting series of letters relating to the assertion by historian Peter Hart relating to the killing of a number of Protestants in West Cork in April 1922.

Mr Hart’s book on the history of the IRA in Cork is deeply flawed as a historical work not because it is biased (because most historians carry their biases into their written work but many are still excellent pieces of historical work) or because of lack of research (because he researched the era extremely well), but because he was trying to write a polemic pushing a political point that Irish republicanism always was and always will be unjustified and sectarian. In the Bandon area a number of well disguised local men accompanied British patrols. When the British forces left the area after the truce, they left behind documents which were recovered by the IRA identifying a number of the men from the Protestant community in the locality. Some of these were later shot by the IRA and others were killed in the carrying out of operations.