Rebels were not forced to stage Easter rising

I’VE been down this tortuous road before with Anthony Leavy (Letters, April 29) in which he wheels out the usual anti-revisionist falsehoods regarding provocation in relation to 1916.

He steadfastly refuses to accept that parliamentary democracy must be fair and just, and not simply a blunt instrument of coercion.

If the British government had believed parliament should be used for such a purpose, it would never have entertained Home Rule – which I repeat, for the umpteenth time, was the law of the land for most of Ireland from September 1914.

Ulster unionists had a right to stay out, as nationalist Ireland had a right within a “fair” constitutional arrangement to secure Home Rule. To deny one is to deny both.

Has Mr Leavy a problem with the 19th amendment to the constitution of June 3, 1998, endorsed in a referendum on an all-Ireland basis. If he has, he’s in a small minority.

His tiresome insistence that Pearse and his cohorts were forced by events into an act of traitorous anti-parliamentary rebellion is nonsense.

Even if by the use of some magic wand a united Home Rule Ireland had been achieved, our well beloved nationalist conspirators would have attempted an insurrection at some opportune stage.

Their aim was never a Home Rule Ireland of any kind, but a fanatical desire to save Ireland from a fate far worse than death: modernity and pluralism.

They succeeded, and the result was an effusion of needless blood, and the only liberal democracy in the world that incongruously celebrates an attempted coup d’etat as its foundation stone. Such a paradox is lost on Mr Leavy and the 1916 faithful.

Pierce Martin

Willowbrook Grove

Celbridge

Co Kildare