Sir, - There is understandable resentment among unionists about "the claim of legal right" by the 26 southern counties to the northern six counties as implied by Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution. After all, these Articles reside in a Constitution ratified 60 years ago by fewer than 40 per cent of those eligible to vote in the southern 26 counties, while people living in the northern six counties had no opportunity vote.
Prior to the McGimpsey judgement in the Supreme Court the articles had been perceived, increasingly, as aspirational rather than "irridentist". The McGimpsey judgement changed that perception by insisting that "the re-integration of the national territory" was a "constitutional imperative".
However, discussion of these articles is incomplete without taking account of the unhappy effects on Ireland of the imperialism and colonialism of the past. The consequences of dispossession and penal law were dire. So too was the effect of the Westminster-engineered repeal of the Irish constitution of 1782.
In January 1783 the British parliament affirmed that the complete legislative and judicial independence of Ireland should be "established and ascertained for ever, and . . . at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable". Yet, within 18 years, following the brutal suppression of the United Irishmen, the Act of Union was brought in by "argument, bribery and intimidation"!
Over a century later, in the 1918 general election, only four counties in Ireland had unionist majorities. The first Dail (1919), though democratically elected, was declared "constitutionally" illegal and a bitter Anglo-Irish war ensued. Subsequently (1922) the Treaty was imposed at the point of Lloyd George's gun.
The Irish Government is not the only one which needs to consider how its sovereignty claim over Northern Ireland is impeding the right of people living in Northern Ireland to determine freely, through the pursuit of consensus, their future relationships.
Unreciprocated repeal of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution would be unacceptable. On the other hand, amendment to express, in a spirit of brotherhood and patience, the hope of a political accommodation among all the peoples of Ireland could be significant. - Yours, etc.,
From John Robb, Chairman, and Wes Holmes, Secretary,
New Ireland Group, c/o Ulster People's College, Adelaide Park, Belfast 9.