Sir, - I condemn the savage slaughter of innocent men, women and children in the town of Omagh by a recently invented group of fascists. I look upon this outrage as an attack on the people of our country North and South and extend my sympathy to the injured and bereaved. This deliberate carnage was murder, not an act of war. It is an attack on each and every person on this island who voted for peace in the recent referendum. It is an onslaught on democracy, an assault on the Good Friday Agreement, and an attempt to wreck the new Assembly, to kill hope.
The people who organised and planted this latest bomb are fascists carrying out mass murder in the name of republicanism. Irish republicanism has its roots in the philosophy of the French Revolution and the manifesto of the United Irishmen, founded in Belfast in 1791: liberty, equality, fraternity. Fascists are diametrically opposed to liberty; they outlaw fraternity and criminalise equality. These fascists have declared war on the Irish people. They have murdered and maimed the people of Omagh.
Sixty-two years ago I went to Spain to defend democracy and republicanism. In 1936 I joined the Connolly Column of the Lincoln Battalion of the XV International Brigade in the Spanish Anti-Fascist war. I fought the Spanish Franco fascists, I fought the Italian and German fascists in the defence of Madrid and the young Spanish Democratic Republic. The legal Spanish government was betrayed by the so-called democracies of America and Europe. With the help of the International Brigades, it fought a lone battle.
The people of this country, Protestant, Catholic and dissenter must band together to defend democracy and peace and to outlaw and defeat those fascist murderers who dare to insult the people by using the name republican. - Yours, etc., Peter O'Connor,
Parnell Street,
Waterford.