Feeble argument against commemorating the Easter revolution

ROBIN BURY (Irish Examiner letters, November 8) argues against the State commemorating the 1916 Rising. Yet the State is but the citizens of Ireland acting collectively.

Your correspondent’s case seems feeble enough - “sacrificial politics” is an empty, emotive phrase. True 1916 was “not mandated”. Revolutions are not elections. Yet the 1918 all-Ireland poll emphatically endorsed the insurrection, albeit retrospectively.

Next, personalities. Eoin MacNeill did indeed countermand the Rising but only because the promised arms procurement from Germany failed to appear. Roger Casement shared such a concern, too. True, Arthur Griffith opted to abstain owing to his conscientious objection to violence per se.