Lessons for all in republican literature

RICHARD DOWLING (Irish Examiner, February 13) makes a common and fundamental error in equating the Irish republican movement solely with Sinn Féin.

If he read the accounts of veterans from 1916 to 1923 he would realise that republicans were often bemused at being mistaken for "shinners".

I'm not sure whether he has Sinn Féin or the broader republican movement in mind when he accuses them of being cultural philistines and of never having produced literature with profound insight into the human condition.