Wheatcroft needs to read a copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and take a closer look at the beliefs and objectives of Irish republicanism from 1798 onwards before making cheap allegations against a group of determined and committed men and women who sought to free their nation from a foreign oppressor. This is a classic case of an English 'historian' patronising the people of a former colony.
Kevin Daly
Keady, Co Armagh
By associating the rising with fascism, Geoffrey Wheatcroft seeks to diminish what was, in reality, part of the centuries-old struggle for independence. The pattern the rising fits into is that of the break up of the British empire.
Patrick Brady
Chislehurst, Kent
After suggesting a link between the 1916 Easter Rising and the rise of fascism in Europe, Wheatcroft goes on to say that Ireland 'claims to be and, indeed, is a parliamentary democracy'; what is his intention in referring to a fact as a 'claim'? What is certainly true is that Ireland was not a democracy under 'lawful government' in 1916. In the absence of any meaningful political avenues, the Irish were quite entitled to take up arms to challenge British rule.
Terrible things have been done by Irish republicans in the last century; that also goes for loyalists and representatives of the British state. The 1916 rising did not cause the Troubles, it was a manifestation of them. As a fundamentally important part of the Irish struggle for independence, it is absolutely legitimate for people to celebrate it as such.
Pat Hynes
Motherwell, N Lanarkshire
I guess Geoffrey Wheatcroft could argue with equal panache against every war of independence waged against what is seen as a foreign power - from George Washington onwards. As Padraig Pearse proclaimed: 'The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and power has not extinguished that right.'
Let's now hear Geoffrey Wheatcroft's views on 1776.
Nicolas Hood Phillips
London SW13
Thank you, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, for your article. Long overdue. WB Yeats was far from 'the greatest European poet of the age'. Other than that - a great piece.
Patrick Mcveigh
New York, US
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