Sir, - In reply to Dick Walsh's review of The Arms Trial ("Two cheers for the research", October 28th), my book makes clear that it is Capt Kelly and not the author who concludes that the only option open to the Government was to co-operate with the IRA and extreme republicans generally. Is Mr Walsh seriously suggesting that it is a misjudgment to include a quotation highlighting the strategic imperatives advocated by a key figure in the arms crisis?
I further suggest that Mr Walsh check his historical facts. As the Arms Trial reached an explosive denouement, Jack Lynch used a speech at the United Nations to plead with London to accept Dublin's role as a guarantor for Northern nationalism. This is a far cry from London ceding the principle - an uncomfortable reality that Mr Walsh appears unwilling to accept. The speech was clearly designed to stabilise the politics of the Republic and marked the limitations of Irish nationalism. Mr Lynch's use of a quotation from Terence MacSwiney to justify the retraction of the goal of traditional unity was nothing less than the subversion of the republican legacy. Lest there be any further confusion, this is not a value judgement, simply a statement of fact.
The aspiration to guarantor status did not gain formal acceptance until the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, and Even then it was limited to a right of consultation. Furthermore, given the British government's ability to suspend the Northern Ireland Executive earlier this year despite the outcry from northern nationalism, it is questionable that even now there is institutional acceptance of Dublin's role as joint guarantor. - Yours, etc.,
Justin O'Brien, Barnett's Court, Belfast.