Appeasement is one of the most repugnant words in the historian’s dictionary.

Although now on the cusp of what we might call living memory, the 1930s were its hey-day.

Kow-towing to fascism, Neville Chamberlain described Hitler’s ambitions to annex Czechoslovakia as a “quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing”.

One of the most potent images in photojournalism is of the British prime minister waving a piece of paper and declaring “peace for our time”.

Róisín Lanigan: Seeing the Irish tricolour flying in London, I felt ashamed

Noel Doran: Is there light at end of tunnel for Crumlin Road courthouse?

The Munich agreement he was brandishing wasn’t worth the paper it was written on. Czechoslovakia fell, and then it was the turn of the Poles. The rest, as they say, is history.

Chamberlain was an honourable man, and not the only advocate of appeasement by any means, but given what we know now about what unfolded, he and his fellow travellers not only let down his own country, he let down the countless millions who lost........

© The Irish News