A chara, - Does Ruth Dudley-Edwards forget the catastrophe that John Bruton caused the last time he was involved in the peace process? The unionist-appeasing approach he took to the Northern situation was far from pluralist but promoted a unionist agenda, facilitating them at every turn. This approach left the nationalist population without a voice from the South and they felt alienated from the process.
Does she believe it is acceptable for the British government to represent unionism and not acceptable for the Irish Government to represent nationalism and republicanism?
The analogy of southern unionism being the same as black seclusion in America is not only preposterous but ridiculous. Maybe she should look at the records of past unionist governments in the North of Ireland as a demonstration of her analogy, rather than at a man in west Cork.
I doubt whether she has anything to fear from a Fine Gael government led by Michael Noonan, especially with backing from Alan Dukes and his oftquoted phrase that he wouldn't sit into government with Sinn Fein. - Is mise
David McCoy, Belsize Court, Newcastle, Galway City.
Sir, - Ruth Dudley-Edwards (Opinion, February 5th) convincingly presses Irish readers to consider their underlying anti-unionist bigotry. However, I must take issue with the liberty she takes in her closing sentence. The "back of the bus" analogy with American civil rights marchers is wholly inappropriate.
The lynchings, church-burnings and institutionalised violence that beset the courageous men and women who struggled for the legal rights of African Americans in the United States are the elements that make up an historic movement whose influence spread around the globe. When Ireland's indigenous unionists (or, for that matter, republicans) do something akin to walking upwards of two hours a day to and from work passionately and non-violently to prove a point I think you can make such flourishes. Until then, Ireland's political analysis industry really ought to stop appropriating the struggles and victories of others. - Yours, etc.,
Edith Shillue, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
A chara, - Ruth Dudley Edwards makes much of the so-called "Reform Movement" and its members' various utterances concerning Irish society. Just how many people are there in this "movement" (of which Ms Dudley Edwards is a patron)?
The organisation's website is interesting in that it requests a "Reform of the State's Constitution, or the substitution of a modern, secular Constitution". It is rather strange however, that neither she nor that organisation (nor unionists in general) seem interested in pursuing reform of the British constitution, which requires the reigning monarch to be of a particular religion and specifically forbids him or her from marrying a Catholic. Hardly an example of the tolerance and pluralism that she demands from everybody but unionists.
Finally, can Ms Dudley Edwards not accept that the overwhelming majority of people in this State have no interest in being British, and that includes Protestants? Her pathetic attempt to bring a sectarian slant to her piece by including the words of a West Cork "Protestant" - as if, somehow, Irish Protestants are under some sort of obligation to feel themselves somehow not-Irish or partly British - was shameful. - Is mise,
PPaul Linehan, Thormanby Road, Howth, Co Dublin.