Biden and Ireland

SIR – During his visit to Jerusalem President Joe Biden compared the relations between Israel and the Palestinians “with Great Britain and their attitude toward Irish Catholics for 400 years” (report, July 16 ).

It is up to Israel to defend its reputation against a slur from one who is meant to be its ally. We in the UK should be more concerned with Mr Biden’s attack on our past conduct.

We should be grateful at least that he did not resort to the nationalist trope of “800 years of oppression”. His shorter period of 400 years is, presumably, that between the Reformation and the 1921 Treaty.

That period saw various responses to Irish Catholicism: from tolerance to extreme persecution, penal laws and, eventually, equal treatment and the end of the Protestant ascendancy.

Even before Emancipation in 1829, the penal laws were gradually relaxed. Catholics were allowed to matriculate at Trinity College, Dublin, and to be called to the bar.

In the century after 1829, Irish Catholics were not only eligible for election to Parliament, but also held all the main judicial and administrative offices in the Irish establishment.

This occurred at a time when African Americans were either enslaved or largely excluded from the vote or eligibility for office.

C D C Armstrong

Belfast