Why honour a ‘scorched earth’ British officer?

DONEGAL’S Cllr Marion McDonald (FF) recently proposed that Viscount Bernard Montgomery should be commemorated in Donegal, his birthplace.

This may be problematic as Irish people (albeit currently only one of them) are proposing to commemorate the house of someone who supported the burning of Irish people’s houses.

Montgomery wrote on this very subject in a (recently published) letter to the notorious Major Percival of the Essex Regiment in 1923 (they were stationed together in Cork): “Personally, my whole attention was given to defeating the rebels but it never bothered me a bit how many houses were burnt. I think I regarded all civilians as ‘Shinners’ and I never had any dealings with any of them. My own view is that to win a war of this sort, you must be ruthless.”