Madam, - I am a Northern nationalist living in the South for many years. I have always felt a huge sense of betrayal by the South of Northern nationalists; but never have I felt so enraged as by your paper's publication of scurrilous and malicious attacks on Sinn Féin and the recently deceased Joe Cahill. Kevin Myers and Newton Emerson led the charge, but I should like to address three of your recent letter-writers.
Adrian Carroll (August 7th)seems not to know that the lack of civil liberties and justice were the cause of the conflict in the North in the first place. Did he hear Father Egan, in 1969 archive material on Morning Ireland, describe how he watched Catholic homes being attacked by the RUC and loyalists while the British Army stood idly by?
Brian Moran (August 6th) should know that I and the 10,000 others who attended Joe Cahill's funeral are grateful to this extraordinary republican who sacrificed all during his lifetime - most of it in British prisons - for our freedom; just as Michael Collins and De Valera did for yours.
Anthony Hartnett (August 13th) writes the most uninformed and selective rubbish of all. Should he want to educate himself as to who the real murderers, torturers and thugs were, I suggest that he read A Very British Jihad by Paul Larkin - a hair-raising account of collusion and cover-up by British conspirators. He will also learn that the funeral of the mass murderer Billy Wright was attended by Ian Paisley Junior and Peter Robinson - possibly the next first minister. So Mr Hartnett shouldn't be too eager to throw stones at Albert Reynolds for his attendance at the Cahill funeral.
Madam, I read somewhere that an editor is a person employed by a newspaper to separate the wheat from the chaff and to see that the chaff is printed. - Is mise,
GABRIELLE KELLY,
Avondale,
Avoca,
Co Wicklow.