Garret Fitzgerald had many virtues.
But he never had a pedantic devotion nor a bigot’s obsession with the
truth.
Among other things Garret was a professional statistician who taught his
subject to pupils in Rathmines Tech.
But he rejected the validity of Sinn Fein’s landslide election victory in 1918
in which his father was a winner because Sinn Fein got ONLY 47% of
THE VOTES CAST.
THE TIMES of London declared that in Ireland the election was regarded on all sides as a plebiscite.
Edward MacLysaght (1887-1986) kept a diary for much of his life, and in
his Memoir “Changing Times -Ireland since 1898” quoted his entry of
28th January 1919:-
“Just one thing occurs to me to mention before I put my diary away: an
example of how our claim for self-determination for small nations –
championed by Britain in the case of the Czechs – is misrepresented
by politicians and newspapers there. In quoting statistics for last year’s general election they give the total votes cast for and against Sinn Fein only in contested
elections, completely ignoring the 25 constituencies where Sinn Fein was unopposed, thus presenting an entirely misleading picture
Democracy only works if “they “ get the desired result !