Madam, - Watching TV reports of loyalist thuggery and murder, I was not really surprised that the strongest condemnation that Dr Paisley could muster was that such activity "plays into the hands of republicanism" and makes Gerry Adams happy.
By an equivalent standard, the really objectionable feature of bank robberies, punishment beatings and shootings by members of IRA/Sinn Féin would be that they make Dr Paisley and his Paisleyites happy by fortifying the malevolence of Protestant bigotry and sustaining the tyranny of unionist intolerance.
Do the mouthings of those who get the biggest vote not undermine the notion that those Irish who wish to be British include any substantial body of people who hold, as a matter of real conviction rather than contemporary political etiquette, that those activities are wrong inherently, without regard to the allegiances of the perpetrators, and who accept that the law-abiding Irish whose aspiration is to be not British are no less worthy of respect on that account?
Such was the premise on which many of us voted for the Good Friday Agreement. - Yours, etc,
FRANK FARRELL, Lakelands Close, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Fintan O'Toole (Opinion, September 13th) correctly identifies the fault line in the Belfast Agreement but, regrettably, he appears to have misidentified the problem.
It is not the failure of both governments to "acknowledge the futility of building shared governance on mutual hatred" that is the obstacle, but their failure to acknowledge that of the "two traditions", the unionist tradition is nothing more than a contrivance, an artifice fostered to serve Britain in the past.
Drained of its element of supremacy, unionism is left with nothing but a shell encasing incendiary emotions, now being exploited by the secret society at the heart of that "tradition", which feels marginalised.
No one is denying the courage of John Major and Albert Reynolds, who broke the mould of Anglo-Irish politics in December 1993 with the Downing Street Declaration, paving the way for the Belfast Agreement in April 1998. Yet no political leader in Britain or in Ireland has since dared to allude to the fact that both documents mention - albeit with great diplomacy - "Irish unity" (Article 6 of Downing Street Declaration) and a "united Ireland"("Constitutional Affairs", Article 1 (ii), Belfast Agreement). Why not?
There is an anachronism here. While a huge, well-funded campaign was launched in the Irish Republic to persuade the Irish people to reverse their original decision about the Nice Treaty, complete silence reigns on an issue far closer to home: a united Ireland.
Now that the taboo preventing discussion about a united Ireland has been lifted by two government documents, is it not the responsibility of the Irish Government to promote a public debate, precisely at time when a new civil war is brewing in the North? Silence can be read as diplomacy, but also as an abdication of responsibility.
Fintan O'Toole states that the Belfast Agreement "was intended to do two related but in some ways incompatible things. It was, firstly, a tool for conflict resolution. . .[ but] also supposed to be a kind of constitution". He fails to see that the Belfast Agreement is in its character a very British instrument to create democratic institutions for a period of transition that will facilitate the ending of British sovereignty?
Evidence of British withdrawal can already be seen in the steady reduction of British troop numbers and installations in the North. To illustrate the political significance of this reduction, allow me to quote from a letter written by my ancestor, Sir Anthony St Leger, who served as the King's Deputy in Ireland for five terms in the 16th century.
Reporting to King Henry VIII on his a tour of inspection of Ireland in 1537, he wrote: "For onelesse. . .certain fortresses there be bylded and warded, if it [ Ireland] be gotten the one daye, it is loste the next". The retention of British sovereignty was always dependent on the retention of British "fortresses". Throughout history, British sovereignty could never be upheld in any place with no garrisons.
It is worth remembering that while British sovereignty in the North may be legal under UK and international law, and recognized by the Irish Republic, it has never had an iota of ethical legitimacy. - Yours, etc,
MOYA ST LEGER, President, Connolly Association, Queen's Club Gardens, London W14.
Madam, - IRA allegedly robs Northern Bank. McDowell: bash Sinn Féin. IRA allegedly murders Robert McCartney. McDowell: bash Sinn Féin. "Colombia Three" return to Ireland. McDowell: bash Sinn Féin.
Loyalists riot, burn, petrol bomb, shoot. McDowell: Republicans "must reach out to these people". - Yours, etc,
DONAL HARRINGTON, Maryfield Crescent, Artane, Dublin 5.