Cromwell kidnap claim questioned

(‘Unionists say no, 368 years on,’ February 15).Some months ago Martina Anderson spoke of the same thing, only her figures were in the hundreds of thousands.This is very serious by way of accusation if not true. Just have recently I read Tom Reilly’s book called ‘Cromwell the honourable enemy’. Reilly, who is an Irish Roman Catholic and a newspaper columnist, researches the claims made by some Irish history accounts that Cromwell massacred women and children during this Irish campaign of 1649–1650. Reilly finds these claims to be totally without foundation and says that writers of the day would publish outlandish lies if it meant that their enemies’ reputation would look worse as a result of it. His closing words are “there must now be reasonable doubt regarding Cromwell’s involvement in the deaths of the ordinary unarmed people of Ireland”. I strongly suppose therefore that to say he deported Irish speaking children as slaves is another lie that instils hatred in the hearts of people. Liam McBride, Magherafelt