Sir, - Parties talking, or not talking, to each other are ineffectual when they do not share nationality and when they cannot even be confident of controlling their respective supporters. It is time to use a census type enquiry to find out the preference of every individual now living in Northern Ireland.
They should be asked which is more important to them to live where they are now, regardless of flag, or to live in the company of others who share their sense of nationality, indicated by one flag or the other.
Geographers aided by computers now have the resources to plot the replies on the map, so as to indicate approximately the outline of a border which would enable those on each side of it to live peacefully and march at will. I suppose that it will by now be agreed that a great deal of the historic problem is related to a border drawn inappropriately, and never revised. As for county boundaries, they are not of divine origin.
Once the new outline is made known, those who find themselves as it were marginalised could call on considerable resources, saved from the costs of conflict, to rehouse themselves congenially. Thousands of families have done so over the years, without any help.
It is my belief that something on these lines is bound to happen - or else the British Government will hand over a large explosive package to the Republic. I simply want to see this option included in the debate. - Yours, etc.,
Whitechurch Road,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.