I was surprised to learn of Sinn Féin’s divorce from its relationship with historical memory at the end of Simon Schama’s overview of nationalism and remembrance (Life & Arts, May 7).
The claim itself is a rewriting of history in that it ignores the party’s continued commemoration industry, which is devoted to eulogising the republican “volunteers” and the extolling of the “injustice” of partition. Schama’s survey also neglects the famous quote by French historian Ernest Renan about a nation being a “daily plebiscite” of forgetting.
The election was just that: a large part of Sinn Féin’s success in last week’s election may well be down to selective amnesia on the part of northern nationalist voters as to the fact that republicans were responsible for the vast majority (60 per cent) of the nearly 4,000 deaths across three and a half decades.
Cillian McGrattan
Holywood, County Down, UK