Cruise O’Brien’s part in a sordid chapter of recent Irish history

THE indignant rant of Pierce Martin (Letters, January 12) in response to my letter of January 5 (‘Intellectual giant who turned into a political pygmy’) clearly shows that even three generations into partition, and all the horrors that have flowed from that seismic event, there are still some among us who resent the removal of British colonialism from Ireland.

Mr Martin vents his anger at the British government for “yielding to terrorists and their irrational demands” by entering into negotiations with republicans in 1921.

In the 1918 general election, probably the key defining moment in modern Irish history, Sinn Féin were given an overwhelming mandate to establish an independent all-Ireland state.