New Testament runs rings round the Proclamation

Pick up a copy of the New Testament (a modern translation, if possible) and read a few chapters at random.

The originality, insights and sheer authenticity of the text puts most foundational documents to shame.

It certainly runs rings around the 1916 Proclamation, which is very derivative in nature and merely exhortational, by and large.

No wonder the Centenary celebrations keep trying to co-opt Easter into this Republican narrative, and are desperately trying to shoe-horn Charles Stewart Parnell and Daniel O’Connell into the same little straitjacket on behalf of much shallower, more violent men. It’s time we taught our ‘children’ some of the real facts of life about the 1916 uprising.

Richard Dowling

7 Patrick Street

Mountrath

Co Laois