Sir, - With regard to the letter from Pat McGrath (September 11th), I make the following observations.
1. It may have escaped his attention, but the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has already expressed her personal view that the two guardsmen should be dismissed from service, notwithstanding that this is a matter for the Minister for Defence and the Army Board.
2. I do not know if Mr McGrath is aware, but Ludovic Kennedy has carried out an analysis of the evidence given at the trial of the guardsmen and has formed the view that both may have been wrongly convicted of murder. For what it is worth, Mr Kennedy is no friend of the establishment or the military in this country.
3. For my part, any person in the military who is convicted of a violent offence, be it hooliganism, murder or other, should be discharged from service, always assuming a conviction was proper in the first instance.
4. Is there any danger that the perennial sniping at Britain that appears with monotonous regularity in the letters section of The Irish Times will ever abate?
Maybe I have misunderstood the so-called Good Friday Agreement but I thought that, inter alia, it was to provide a fresh start. If people continue to open old wounds, which should now be allowed to heal properly, is there any hope? Mr McGrath's letter is a prime example of how not to make a fresh start. - Yours, etc., Steven Dale,
Broxbourne,
Hertfordshire,
England.