Sunday Times, 24 February 2013, The Sunday Times. p16
Letters from Niall Meehan, David Fitzpatrick
Fitzpatrick’s fake song shames us all
The fake republican ballad by Professor David Fitzpatrick has no historic foundation. Indeed, his Cambridge University lecture on The Spectre of Ethnic Cleansing, following the song, is no more than a ghost story (“Lecturer ballad ‘insults’ victims of Dunmanway”, News, last week).
For some time Fitzpatrick has promoted the late Peter Hart’s view that there was ethnic cleansing of Protestants during the war of independence. He continued to do so even after Hart, who was Fitzpatrick’s PhD pupil, abandoned this opinion in 2003.
It appears Fitzpatrick has learnt nothing from his error, in that a song has been substituted for academic substance. Fitzpatrick excuses himself by stating that his audience did not take offence at his rendition of the song’s mock sectarian sentiments.
The “revisionist” trend in Irish historiography is often defended because it exposes nationalist shibboleths. Here, however, we have a fake “song” in poor taste, one that dishonoured the spirit of Charles Stewart Parnell, in whose name the lecture in question is held annually.
Niall Meehan, Griffith College, Dublin
Dramatic effect
You should have made it clear my lecture concerned the demographic outcome of violence against Protestants, not the motivation of those committing violent acts. I specifically refrained from discussing the influence of sectarian motives and attitudes on republicans and the IRA, arguing that all motives are mixed and ultimately impenetrable.
Having analysed fresh evidence from Methodist records, I concluded the sharp decline in Protestant population was largely due to reduced intake of new members and to some extent to emigration. I therefore suggested the demographic impact of violence and threats against West Cork Protestants has been exaggerated, and that many weathered the storm and fairly soon resumed normal communal life.
You may have created the false impression that I endorsed the “ethnic cleansing” hypothesis, so causing needless offence to descendants of West Cork republicans and “loyalists”. By composing a ballad recounting attacks on West Cork Methodists, I hoped to dramatise incidents tending to create fear among Protestants, with a view to underlining the resilience of the minority and their determination to take a full part in the life of the new Irish state.
David Fitzpatrick, Cambridge