Remembering the RIC

Sir, – Reminding us of "how easy it is to whip up atavistic emotions for political gain" ("Centenary events foster a simplistic narrative of independence", Opinion & Analysis, January 18th), Stephen Collins nevertheless cannot pass up the opportunity to blame "Sinn Féin and its supporters" for allegedly causing the cancellation of a State commemoration proposed by then-minister for justice Charlie Flanagan.

Whatever about “widespread ignorance about what actually happened 100 years ago”, Stephen Collins’s article reveals a few misconceptions of his own about what happened just two years ago.

Mr Flanagan’s proposed event was intended to commemorate not only Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) casualties of “the 1916-1921 period”, as your columnist claims, but all members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) who served between 1836 and 1922, a delineation which includes both the Black and Tans and the Auxiliary Division.

It was the well-publicised clarifications of members of the Government’s Expert Advisory Group on Commemorations that they had not recommended that a service for the RIC and the DMP be included in the list of State commemorations that compelled Mr Flanagan to shelve the proposed ceremony.

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To attribute the cancellation to “Sinn Féin and its supporters” is to disregard the insight, eloquence and agency of a number of professional historians and Government-appointed experts. –Yours, etc,

BRIAN Ó ÉIGEARTAIGH,

Donnybrook,

Dublin 4