Memorial to 1916 British soldiers - Debate should be reasoned

CALLING for a permanent memorial to be erected in Dublin to British soldiers who fought and died in the Easter Rising is bound to be a highly sensitive issue.

Considering, however, the warmth of today’s new-found relationship between Ireland and Britain, the proposal should not be automatically ruled out .

Rather than greeting the suggestion with a negative knee-jerk reaction, it deserves to be debated openly and in a reasoned manner.

That the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys, has already promised a memorial to the soldiers would be considered, along with other proposals, is a welcome development.

The same can be said of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s response to a call for him to visit, as a mark of respect, the UK graves of British soldiers who died during the Rising.

While Mr Kenny has no plans to visit graves there, he has given an assurance that the loss of British Army lives during the Rising will be “appropriately commemorated”.

Similarly, the views of those on the opposite side of the argument have already been enunciated by Sinn Féin TD Peadar Toibín, who declared that “British Soldiers imposing oppression through violence should not be commemorated equally with volunteers seeking Irish freedom.”

Now that this debate has begun in earnest, let’s hope that as we prepare for the 100th anniversary of the Rising, the discussion will be fair-minded and held in a non-aggressive atmosphere.

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