Proclamation rammed down our throats

THE unveiling of Robert Ballagh’s, framed etched glass portrait of Patrick Pearse, inside the Sinn Féin rooms of Stormont, to the North’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, in the presence of Mr Ballagh and the public, resonates with an irony.

Pearse demonstrated what he thought of Parliamentary democracy in 1916 — and the outcome was 450 dead, including almost 300 civilians, thousands wounded, and the heart torn out of the city of Dublin.

Where are the etched glass portraits of the innocent victims who didn’t choose to die for Ireland?

The Proclamation was a sugar-coated piece of pap to sweeten the poison of insurrection, not a document to compare with Magna Carta or the American Declaration of independence.

Unlike the American Declaration of Independence, which was a response to American aspirations during a popular ongoing colonial war with Britain, the 1916 document was merely rammed down the throats of the Irish people.

Pierce Martin

Celbridge

Co Kildare