Enda O’Doherty writes: Ronald Blythe, who died on January 14th aged one hundred, was best known for Akenfield, his study, published in 1969, of the life, over three generations, of an English village. Akenfield became an instant classic and was made into a film by Sir Peter Hall. The place Akenfield did not actually exist…

The terms ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ are not mutually exclusive, in the present or in the past. History matters and cannot be ignored. But in trying to shape a peaceful future for Ireland we should be aware of the danger of too much history, in particular a one-sided obsession with past wrongs.