First World War was a just cause

Madam – I disagree with Anthony Cronin’s article on the first World War ( Sunday Independent, August 3).

In August 1916 Germany was de facto under the control of General Ludendorff when the Third Supreme Command took over. Sultanate Turkey was a pyramid power and it carried out the first holocaust by the massacre of one and half million Armenian Catholics.

We should remember that Roger Casement recruited Irish prisoners of our “gallant allies” — Turkey, Germany and Austria-Hungary. Both Germany and Austria-Hungary had used poison gas by this stage.

President Woodrow Wilson stated his war aims: “we do not want territory or sovereignty but the world must be made safe for democracy… we are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind”.

After the war the Allies set up the League of Nations to promote democracy and preserve peace. Most right thinking people now consider the use of force in defence of human rights as a “just war”.

Noel Flannery South Circular Road Limerick

Bruton was right about Home Rule

Madam - I would like to respond to Mr. Gerry Adams and his inane and predictably dronelike attack upon ex-Taoiseach Mr. John Bruton, and his courageous, and wholly justified analytical and ethical critique of the 1916 insurrection — and by implication its myriad apologists for those six days of blood sacrifice instigated by its chief ideologue Patrick Pearse.

The year 1916 saw the sequel to the 1867 insurrection which within a year had degenerated into outright terrorism. This represented the first wave of a nightmare of murderous Fenian insurgency directed against liberal democracy in Ireland, and in what was then mainland Britain.

This relentless fanatical campaign lasted for 19 years ending in 1886. Had the Irish Constabulary been as well trained, and as well equipped as they had been from 1867 to 1886, the 1916 terrroists would have been crushed, and deposited into the proverbial dust-bin of history - a place incidentally where Mr Adams together with his Sinn Fein-IRA comrades belong.

Mr Bruton believes in political evolution (an alien concept to Mr Adams ) and in respect for civilized political institutions inside a liberal State, and in real politics of which 1916 was an arrogant and contemptuous denial as was all of the insurgent violence that followed up to 1921-23 — a denial of the option of politics.

It might be salutary to reflect that Pearse’s Fenian Programme which he announced in 1915, over the grave of O’Donovan Rossa was on the verge of extinction before the great bloodwomen bath propaganda of the event of 1916. Home Rule secured by John Redmond on September 18 1914 for most of Ireland (placed in abeyance until after the war) was a stepping stone to any future narrative course including that of independence — if so wished by the people for most of the island.

The six counties of Ulster would always be problematic and quite understandably so, owing to — among many other rational reasons — the power of the Catholic Church in the South. Pierce Martin, Celbridge Co Kildare

Spirit of 1916 is needed today

Madam - Mr John Bruton is incorrect and lacking in empathetic understanding when he disparages the fundamental importance of the 1916 Easter Rising in our country’s history.

Tom Clarke,Pearse, Connolly, MacDiarmada, MacDonagh, Eamonn Ceannt, Plunkett — these men were not thugs. They were to a man high-minded idealists, whose desire to see Ireland free of British rule was fostered from their youth by a resurgence of pride in our language, culture, games and ancient history which kicked in from the late 19th century.

At their mothers’ knees their mental development was shaped in reactionary mode, by stories of the woeful annihilation of the recent Great Famine. They were men who embodied the old Fenian belief — that England’s crisis was Ireland’s opportunity to strike for independence.

They lost their gambit, they lost their lives, but their republican spirit electrified the Irish people, very evident in the ecstatic welcome for the surviving freed Irish prisoners by hundreds of thousands in Dublin on June 1917.

We need that spirit now and ever, to fight for justice, truth, fairness, honour and safety in Irish, European and World societies.

Eileen McGough, Author, ‘Diarmuid Lynch a Forgotten Irish Patriot’ Cork

Better chance for more female TDs

Madam - In your paper on Sunday last (August 3) both Roger Jupp and John Drennan highlight the fact that women are dissatisfied that too few women were promoted in the recent government reshuffle.

Women are more than 50 per cent of the electorate but only 15 per cent of TDs are women.

The Government has imposed a quota which penalises the public funding of political parties with less than 30 per cent female candidates — a great opportunity to increase in the next election.

Governments will then not have the excuse of having too few available for high office when choosing ministers and junior ministers..

A Leavy, Sutton, Dublin 13

Antonia’s heroin article worthwhile

Madam - Antonia Leslie’s article about heroin, (Sunday Independent, 27 July ) was the best I have ever read explaining the mind-set of those unfortunate people who get trapped using heroin.

This article should be read out to students in every school in Ireland, to show the terrible consequences of this killer drug.

Antonia, if your superb article stops just one person from using heroin, it will have been worthwhile. Well done. Maurice Curtin, Co Cork

Letter writers should keep at it

Madam - Brian Mc Devitt praises the Letters page ( Sunday Independent, 27 July, 2014).

Since I began to speak publicly three years ago, mostly about depression, through the letters pages, I receive regular contacts from people in distress or their relatives. Letter writers keep doing your thing and papers keep publishing them. Tommy Roddy, Galway

Good wishes to the journeying swifts

Madam - What an appropriate piece on swifts by Joe Kennedy ( Sunday Independent, August 3). Swifts come to Ireland to breed in late April and leave to head back for the African continent in late July and early August. So basically they are here for the creme-de-lá-creme of our insect hatch.

They spend all their life on the wing and only touch down to breed. They are amazing to watch as they glide, twist, bank, and fly like an aerial acrobatic show.

However they are decreasing in number due to modern building methods where all cracks and crevices are sealed. Thankfully this summer of fantastic weather has been good to them. Long may we enjoy their skyfest. We wish them well on their challenging journey southwards and look forward to their return next spring.

Tom Lynch, Ennis, Co Clare

These screamers are no devil birds

Madam - The title “Scytheshaped screamers” caught my eye in last week’s paper and, with it, came another enlightening article from Joe Kennedy’s Country Matters.

The screamers, of course, are our welcome summer visitor, the swift — the bird equivalent of a Japanese bullet train. The screaming, although shrill and piercing, does not cause alarm or fear. Rather it denotes all is well with nature.

Like Joe I have had the good fortune to rescue a bird which had temporally become grounded and I hope it brought me good luck!. ‘Devil Birds’ they most certainly are not. Damien Boyd, Cork