Deep-rooted neutrality

I ENDORSE Tom Cooper’s sentiments on the First World War (Letters, June 18).

The nationalist tradition of neutrality goes back to the United Irishmen and Wolfe Tone (1790). Also James Connolly, Arthur Griffith and Roger Casement were ardent neutralists.

Casement urged the Irish to “abstain from the bloodshed” of the war while Connolly proclaimed, “we serve neither king nor kaiser but Ireland.”