Sir, In recent years your paper has become increasingly nationalist and anti-unionist. This view is shared by my unionist friends, who say your editorials and most of your correspondents, such as Vincent Browne, Tim Pat Coogan, John Waters, Mary Holland and Nuala O'Faolain are prejudiced. This formidable gathering of trendy journalists is anti-British, for a united Ireland which is, of course, politically correct, albeit sectarian.
A recent example is your treatment of the "hot" Sean O'Callaghan story, which was plastered all over the British media but only got a few lines on an inside page in The Irish Times. This is either because you cannot spot a good story (highly unlikely) or because you do not accept Sean O'Callaghan's courageous damning of the hypocrisy and cant of the IRA, who have no intention of giving up violence and will use any future ceasefire for tactical purposes again. John Hume is living in a very dangerous world and it is only a matter of time before the loyalists react with bombs in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. In other words, Hume is aiding the IRA to drag us into a civil war, while Dublin waves him on.
In particular treatment your correspondent Vincent Browne meted out to Sean O'Callaghan on his RTE Tonight programme was outrageous by any journalistic standards. He tried to rubbish him, instead of encouraging him to criticise the cynical way in which the IRA is using Hume as a messenger boy. Then he got. Hume to discredit O'Callaghan on air by accusing him of being a British plant, which was a pathetic insult from a man who puts vanity, first, good judgement second.
Funnily enough, unlike Hume, the British media know the real thing when they see it. This incredibly courageous man should be lionised by our media and politicians and used to expose the IRA for the hypocrites they are. Mary Robinson, not British security, should be protecting him. That he has not been welcomed here is a comment on how green this country has become, a true tribute to Sinn Fein's propaganda machine. How many more gardai have to be shot and Indians murdered in London before we realise that Sean O'Callaghan is telling the truth? Yours, etc.,
Military Road, Ballybrack, Co Dublin.