Irishmen who died in mistaken belief that a promise had been honoured

I WELCOME the important letter by Dr Brian Murphy OSB on the undemocratic opposition to Home Rule in 1910-1914 and afterwards (Irish Examiner, November 28).

There can surely be no doubt that the British government, more particularly Lloyd George and Bonar Law, did indeed “betray the democratic voice of the Irish people and the will of the House of Commons.”

Many Irishmen (in the Dublin and Munster Fusiliers and in the 10th Irish Division) lost their lives in Gallipoli in 1915 in the belief that Home Rule had been granted to them by the British parliament in September 1914.

Indeed, I would add that it was also a betrayal of the democratic voice of the English people as expressed in the general election of 1910.

We have yet to recover from this betrayal of democracy, and the will of the people in Northern Ireland as I write is still routinely ignored by British politicians in Westminster.

Dr Gerald Morgan

Trinity College

Dublin 2