Sir, - Congratulations to Mary Holland for her excellent column on the Border Minority Group's conference on May 26th (Opinion, May 31st). She hits the nail on the head when she writes that, through a sense of exclusion and isolation, the confidence of Protestants living along the southern side of the Border was broken and they remained estranged and apathetic. Her suggestion that the Protestant community "should reinvent itself as a vibrant political and social force in the life of the nation" is a fascinating one, but we suggest this concept is broadened into a secular one as religion could be - indeed has been - divisive instead of being healing.
There are many people of all religious affiliations in this State who are Irish and British and reject the notion of a mythical, pure Irish race. They have largely lost political and social influence, as Mary Holland correctly says. However, they do not so much need to reinvent themselves as to assert themselves in a spirit of reconciliation.
In the light of the Belfast Agreement, which guarantees respect for both traditions on the island, it was extremely encouraging to hear Judge Donal Barrington, head of the Human Rights Commission, saying in Monaghan that as far as he was concerned, "what is sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander" in the enforcement of the Belfast Agreement in the South. Now a real effort can be made by this Government to educate people to understand that there is a large and important community here whose needs have to respected under the terms of the agreement and Article 3. It is equally important, as a peace activist said at the conference, that this community positively asserts itself to help build a new society on the island and is not put off by negative responses.
Conferences like this one are important and we in Reform hope they will take regularly. Society should not be afraid to address the imbalance that has existed in this State since independence, particularly in the light of the recent rapidly changing ethnic landscape. - Yours, etc.,
Ian Beamish, Robin Bury, Derek Simpson, The Reform Movement, Military Road, Killiney, Co Dublin.