Here’s why we reject the myth of 1916

PÁDRAIG Ó CUANACHÁIN’s letter (Irish Examiner, March 10) seeks clarification from Reform on some of the points he makes.

Reform’s position on 1916 is quite clear. It was the bloody work of a minority within a minority which considered the Irish people were degenerate (see the essay of Francis Shaw SJ in Studies, Summer 1972).

1,351 people were killed or severely wounded; a civil war ensued in which some 5,800 died; partition was copperfastened; a theocracy emerged masquerading as a democracy; grinding poverty resulted when hundreds of thousands emigrated to the enemy country, mostly badly-educated; Protestants left or learnt to shut up.