CHRISTMAS 1944 , PEACE AND GOOD WILL
Sir
I was fascinated by your Diarist’s piece on Christmas 1944 because I
clearly remember being three years old on 28th
December that year.
I was secure and warm and fed and remember eating apple pie. Amongst my
presents was a toy aeroplane which my
brother Brian assured me was “a four-engine bomber.” I was fortunate
in my ignorance of bombs and bombers, and my
nine-year old brother only knew of them by reputation. I understand that
occasionally a German plane flew low over
the cliffs a few hundred yards away over Howth’s Baily Green, but flew
away again when warning shots were fired
from the anti-aircraft battery there.
We were well favoured in Ireland. I blame those who, in 1914, refused to join
the lunatic onslaught on peoples who never threatened Ireland,(nor
England either) and staged an Insurrection in Dublin 1916 and an awakened Irish
electorate which endorsed those refuseniks in repeated elections.
Perhaps some day THE IRISH TIMES will deign to recognise the benign legacy, not
least nearly a century of peace,in most of Ireland, of Pearse,Connolly, de Valera and
others.
Donal Kennedy
LONDON
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