During the American revolution the people of of the 13 British colonies were divided in three - a third separatists, a third Tories, a third undecided. People often equate 1916 with 1776. This is false. The American revolution wasn't a war of native versus invader, it was a civil war between radical British colonists and the British army. The colonists nearly lost. As the American historian David McCullough of Scots-Irish descent said, "If the wind had been in another direction on the night of August 29 1776, I think we’d be sipping tea..." History, it turns on a penny. Where America went for a bloody revolution, others went the peaceful route to independence. How many young Irishmen and women are in Australia, New Zealand and Canada right now? Do they grind their teeth at the sight of the Union Flag on the top left of the ANZAC flags? Do they gnash as they pledge allegiance to Canada under a picture of Queen Elizabeth? In 1776 the loyalists of America fled north and created the country we know today as Canada. Are their descendants feeble shoneens and West Brits? No. It may make the Irish-Irelander boil but Northern Ireland and Irish allegiance to Britain is as legitimate and logical as the Irish republic. The doctrine of Pearse is what gave us this dismembered island. The complete opposition to British feeling and identity in Ireland is what keeps us divided. If Americans can celebrate the Pilgrims, the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock, why can't the men and women of Ulster be proud of their settler forebears? What happened in Limerick with Irish Socialist Republicans halting a fundraising event run by Knocklong History Group is profoundly regrettable. History is complicated and it turns on a penny, and as the example of North America shows, you can be a republican or a monarchist and each can make a functioning sovereign democratic country. - a letter I wrote to the Limerick Leader, August 4 2017.