Look at Pearse in a proper historical light

REGARDING Ryle Dwyer’s column (April 2), of course no historical figure should be turned into a false god. However, he or she should also be seen in a proper historical context. Unfortunately, this is often not the case with Padraig Pearse.

His “blood sacrifice” statement was made at a time when society had a tendency to romaticise war (until the horrors of the trenches taught people otherwise).

This was not new. Thomas Jefferson stated: “the tree of liberty must continually be watered with the blood of martyrs and tyrants“, and do the Americans reduce him to a bloodthirsty nutcase? Pearse had great respect for James Connolly and took the latter’s disgust at his “blood sacrifice” rhetoric on board; he moderated his language afterwards. More importantly, in 1915 he said: “war is a terrible thing and this is the most terrible of wars“, and in February 1916: “obviously if a nation can obtain its freedom without bloodshed it is its duty to so obtain it”.

Pearse’s “paedophile” poem was written in a more sexually innocent era — and originally in Irish, where it sounded less suggestive. Even so, Thomas McDonagh and Joseph Plunkett wisely advised Pearse to dispense with it. According to Ruth Dudley Edwards — anything but a Republican — Pearse was “bewildered and hurt”. Hardly the reaction of a guilty man.

I am puzzled by Ryle Dwyer’s alarm at the rise in Sinn Féin’s political fortunes. He lives in a constituency which has had a Sinn Féin TD for nearly 10 years and he knows the sky didn’t fall in.

Judy Peddle

Charleville

Co Cork