Ireland did not live under 800 years of British oppression

Letters from people like Tom Cooper (Letters, December 19) are dangerous, as they can feed the fantasies of those who like to justify the terrorism of the IRA, they must be challenged.

If he really thinks we lived under 800 years of oppression, he needs to read about life for a peasant in Tsarist Russia, a Jew in Eastern Europe or an African in the Belgian Congo and then he might have a better understanding of what oppression is. Life in Ireland was hard but no worse or better than it was for lots of people all over the world. Irish people had the same rights as their British equivalent.

He mentions Irish Catholics being denied the vote and of course by that he means rich land owning Irish men. But the Act removing the vote from Catholics was passed in 1728 in an Irish Parliament by Irishmen against other Irishmen and it was repealed in 1829 by Westminster.