Sir, - There is little that any of us can do to persuade the IRA to destroy its arms, but there is a great deal Irish Catholics can do to bring about a permanent peace in the North.
The first thing is to beg the forgiveness of the Protestants for the innumerable injuries they and their forefathers inflicted on them in the past and up to the present day.
Catholics always approach the question by considering themselves the only injured and aggrieved party, a nation, as the Bible says, that has done justice. Irish Catholics never consider themselves the aggressors, for the history that was taught them at home, in the schools and universities as the injured innocents. But no Protestant who was on the receiving end of Catholic murders, intimidations, ethnic cleansing, boycotts, calumnies and so on for the last two centuries would recognise the picture Catholics have of themselves.
Terrorism can be beaten if all good men pull together against it. The time of the Land League witnessed the longest, most violent and most sustained period of terrorism in modern Irish history. But the terrorists were beaten because all good men stood against them.
In fact the only success terrorism ever had was between 1918 and 1921, but there was a reason for this. Lloyd George had sold the pass to the Irish nationalists, and everyone knew that you had to make friends in good time with those who might be the future rulers of the state. Only the unfortunate Royal Irish Constabulary could not serve two masters, and so paid the price.
I have never yet heard a Catholic priest say to his congregation: "If your Protestant neighbour has anything against you, go first and be reconciled with him, and then come to Communion." If truth is the first casualty in any conflict, the Ten Commandments are the second. As long as you say, "I am doing it for Ireland," you can do whatever you like.
Let the Catholic bishops be the first to give the lead, begging pardon of the Protestants, if necessary on bended knees. If they and all Catholic politicians did this the prospects for peace in Ireland would be immeasurably increased. And so would the prospects for peace in the next life as well. - Yours, etc.,
Des Keenan, Chalkhill Road, Wembley, Middlesex, England.