Sir, – According to your report of January 26th, Martin McGuinness told a Sinn Féin party meeting in Omagh at the weekend that a united Ireland is "within our grasp". Forthcoming elections will "give us the opportunity to take more huge strides towards our ultimate goal", presumably through a greatly increased Sinn Féin vote.
Whence does Mr McGuinness derive this exuberant confidence about unity, apart from feeling it in his bones? Big Sinn Féin victories, North and South, will not help the peace process – rather the reverse. Mr McGuinness’s nationalist approach seems to take no account of unionist opposition to a united Ireland, now as adamant as ever, despite the best (or worst) efforts of Sinn Féin and the IRA. In fact, unionists see the Belfast Agreement as guaranteeing their place in the UK indefinitely.
Mr McGuinness cherishes a bogus mystique that “the establishment of the 1916 Republic is inevitable”. ( He does not recognise the present living Republic of Ireland). This self-delusion is the only source of his optimism about imminent unity. It is only to be hoped that his simplistic views do not damage the real work for peace and reconciliation in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
JOHN A MURPHY,
Cork.