Rising justified by threat of partition

IN his letter headlined ‘Home Rule was law, so who needed the Rising’ (Irish Examiner, April 11), Maurice O’Connell gives an unfair portrayal of events from 1914 when he questions the moral justification of the Rising.

He states that ‘in September 1914, even the unionists knew they could not stop Home Rule, only modify it’.

Of course this modification involved the division of the national territory, which was opposed by the majority of Irish people. It’s worth noting the comments made by British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, just two years previously.