Sir, - Two scenes from the North on our TV screens illustrated more powerfully than words the tragic and seemingly intractable situation there. One, a tearful little boy, traumatised with grief and desolation, walking behind his Daddy's coffin, a single rose in his hand; the other, Jeffrey Donaldson tearing up the Framework Document, while David Trimble laughed like a hyena.
My late father-in-law, who was from Northern Ireland, always said there would never be peace there as long as hatred, bigotry and intransigence continued to flourish. How sadly right he was!
How many more funerals of perfectly innocent victims must we witness before the so-called peace-makers in a peace process are touched by the grace of the God who said on the Cross "they know not what they do"? - Yours, etc., Vera Hughes,
The Newtown, Moate, Co Westmeath.