Sir, - There are frequent references to the territorial claim of the Constitution of Ireland to the six northern counties. Article 2 of the Constitution is not a claim. It is a statement of fact. It merely states the simple geographical fact that the national territory consists of the whole island of Ireland. This fact is in the present tense, it is real, above all it is inalienable. The integrity of the national territory has always de facto existed and will always exist. Any attempt to change the Constitution cannot change this fact. All such an act would do is to state an untruth.
Why then have we read recently that the Taoiseach is prepared to propose this change? At an earlier stage it was stated that any constitutional changes would be wholly bilateral between Britain and Ireland. The present statement of the Taoiseach seems unilateral. I haven't heard Tony Blair state that he is prepared to consider Northern Ireland as outside the United Kingdom. Quite the opposite. No doubt it is argued that an Irish constitutional change would help us to find an understanding with the unionists. I think it would make them more intransigent as they could claim then that the six counties are severed from the Irish Republic.
Such a constitutional change would be unique in the whole world. I don't know of any other country where the aspired achievement of national unity was preceded by a disowning of the national territory. Such a course cannot be right. the most glaring outrage of such a change would be the affront to the nationalists in the North who would then be born and live outside the national territory as defined in the Constitution. And it is puerile to think that they would be satisfied with the "spirit" of being Irish.
The tragedy of the Northern violence is to give peace an illusory priority. Of course everybody wants peace, but it cannot be achieved by doing something that is inherently wrong and an insult to many of us who want a just peace. -Yours, etc.,
Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.