Founding fathers of ‘civic’ nationalism

I AGREE with the view expressed by Dr Gerald Morgan (‘Why Irish nationalism failed the stress test, Letters, March 1) that we must look further back from 1916 in order to appreciate fully the divisions that existed within Irish nationalism.

The death of Charles Stewart Parnell in October 1891 removed one such character capable of unifying all branches of Irish nationalism.

The efforts of two of his erstwhile lieutenants in the Irish Party, William O’Brien and John Redmond, to construct what the historian Hugh Kearney refers to as a ‘civic’ nationalism (ie, encompassing all inhabitants of the