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.

Speaking in Dublin in 1912, he declared: “You can no more split Ireland into two parts than you can split England or Scotland into parts. Ireland is a nation; not two nations, but one nation.”

I put it to Mr O’Connell that the threat of partition ran contrary to the spirit of the proposed Home Rule bill and thus offers significant moral justification for the Easter Rising.

Ger Doyle

Student of History

University College Dublin

Dublin 4