Madam, - Last Saturday a small number of so-called republicans succeeded in preventing a number of unionist groups from parading and sharing their grief as victims of "republican" violence. The freedom to present differing views is what living in a republic should be all about.
It is probably fair to say that the authorities and most people in Ireland were caught off guard by the violence used in their name. We have come to take such freedoms for granted.
We should apologise to the unionists concerned and invite them to return for a much bigger parade. I have no doubt that 100,000 citizens of the Republic would turn up to show their support and vindicate unionists' right to parade here in safety. Come to think of it, we should invite them to participate in the St Patrick's Day parade. Their involvement would render the event much more meaningful as a representation of modern Ireland. - Yours, etc,
FRANK SCHNITTGER, Blessington, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - The riots in Dublin last Saturday presented the Irish people with a timely reminder of what republicanism is all about. But while Sinn Féin is, I believe, responsible for orchestrating the violence, the Garda Síochána is responsible for negating or containing that violence.
It was obvious to the most casual observer that the proposed unionist march would lead to a counter-protest and that, given the nature of Irish republicanism, that counter-protest would be violent. Feeble excuses from the Garda leadership and the Minister for Justice that no such violence was expected call into question their competence.
It is beyond belief that, in their preparations for policing the march (assuming there were any), the Garda planners did not carry out a reconnaissance of the area and note the ready supply of stones, bricks and bottles available to any rioters. The gardaí tasked with policing the riot looked woefully thin on the ground. There were apparently only two lines of gardaí, and the second line had no protective equipment. So not only did the Garda authorities fail the Irish public - they failed their own subordinates.
In a real democracy resignations from the Minister and the Garda Commissioner would have been tendered. Failing that, the Taoiseach would have demanded such resignations or sacked those responsible.
As usual this will not be the case. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL DOLAN, Rosemount Park, Rosegreen, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - The mayhem on O'Connell Street last Saturday can serve as a vivid symbol of 30 years of republican brutality. This was hardly the first time that hooded thugs demanded parity of esteem through a hail of concrete blocks. Nor was it the first occasion when a republican mob has paraded its victim status while hurling glass bottles full of urine at unarmed police.
However, one can only gasp at the audacity of those who invoke the traumatic spectre of the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings as their rationale for disrupting a peaceful, legal march designed to recall the plight of Protestant South Armagh's myriad "disappeared". Equally, it is difficult to muster even a hollow guffaw when confronted by the mob's placards citing civil rights. The quivering wreck that was Charlie Bird eloquently illustrated the depth of the republicans' commitment to basic constitutional freedoms.
The mob itself spoke volumes for the moral temperature of this republic. Their thuggishness and tribalism was eloquently reflected in some of the political reactions that followed.
Some blamed the gardaí. Others divined the malign influence of a Minister for Justice up to his old tricks again. It cannot be too long more before somebody, pointing to the Palestinian flags brandished by some of the mob, invites us to see the violence as a response to the excesses of the Jewish "apartheid" state.
The city centre had barely been cleared before we were assured that the mere fact of a unionist parade in Dublin supplied the "context" for the chaos that followed. Ordinarily one might leave such moral bankruptcy to Damien Kiberd's Newstalk 106 FM. This outfit did, after all, spend the morning of the parade entertaining its listeners with "Why did the Orangeman cross the road" jokes and other clannish inanities.
But this inability to recognise the fascistic core at the heart of modern republicanism has lately become de rigueur. We have a republic whose President has recently endorsed the chauvinistic version of our common history, a version that views everything through Pearse's manic gaze and cannot, apparently, distinguish between National Socialism and the various follies of 20th-century Irish unionism. She acts on the advice of a Taoiseach who has publicly offered to repeal the Offences Against the State Act without requiring formal disbandment of the organisation whose spiritual heirs turned the capital city's finest boulevard into a suppurating crater.
Roll on the Easter Parade. - Yours, etc,
JOHN-PAUL McCARTHY, Exeter College, University of Oxford, England.
Madam, - I am fed up listening to people calling Irish society sectarian, as if we turned up in our thousands for last Saturday's rioting.
I am not sure exactly how many people were involved in the debacle, but even if it were a thousand, it would represents only 0.083 per cent of Dublin's population of 1.2 million.
Everyone I have spoken to is appalled at the Love Ulster parade not being allowed to pass off peacefully, but to label everyone in Irish society sectarian is not only insulting to Irish people, but downright wrong as well. - Yours, etc,
DEREK HOPPER, Griffeen Glen Crescent, Lucan, Co Dublin.
A chara, - There can be no justification for the violence of that scale on the streets of our capital city. It is to be hoped, however, that the naive decision to allow to the "Love Ulster" march will be debated.
I have heard some of those who travelled south on Saturday deny that this was a loyalist march. The reality is that these were loyalist people displaying loyalist flags, and preparing to march to the accompaniment of loyalist flute bands. In short, all the trappings of loyalist triumphalism of which many people living in Ulster will be all too familiar.
To welcome this on to the streets of Dublin is to display naivety beyond belief. Does anyone believe that the authorities in London would permit a Palestinian parade to pass through Golders' Green? I think not.
Your Editorial of February 27th correctly states: "The right to free speech and to protest in a peaceful way is fundamental to a democracy.". Unfortunately, for many living in Ulster the notion of freedom of speech is a myth.
Yes, as a society we must move on. Yes, freedom of speech and expression for all. But only when that basic freedom and equality is afforded to all our citizens, from Coleraine to Carlow, from Larne to Lahinch, should we begin to probe the more controversial issues. - Is mise,
PEADAR DE RÁS, Cúil Raithin, Co Dhoire.
Madam, - The vast majority of people rioting on O'Connell Street last Saturday were members of the growing sub-class that has been abandoned by the present Government's neo-liberal economic policies. - Yours, etc,
SIMON O'DONNELL, Church Place, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Madam, - With the anniversary of the 1916 rising looming, amid an unseemly scramble to be seen as genuine Irish republicans, the aftermath of the riots presents the Government with an opportunity to make a substantial contribution to this debate. Rather than focusing on commemoration through military pageantry, the Government could make it clear to all that until such time as we can safely offer to the loyalist tradition the rights that we advocated for nationalists in the Six Counties, there can be no hope or basis for a United Ireland.
Focusing on what we in the Republic have to do to achieve the harmony between the orange and green traditions as represented by our national flag would be a more fitting contribution to the commemoration. - Yours, etc,
JOHN DEELY, Ringsend, Dublin 4.
Madam, - Your coverage of the angry reaction of people to the loyalist march clearly shows that a display of Union Jacks and British flags outside the GPO in Dublin is opposed by the Irish people. Those in power have gone "a bridge too far" in trying to normalise British rule in Ireland.
This misguided loyalist venture was supposed to be some sort of test of Irish public opinion. It was presented as a measure of maturity and acceptance but any secondary-school student of Irish politics could have forecast a negative reaction.
The fact is that our country is divided and partition is the cause of conflict. No amount of papering over the failure of the Stormont Agreement will change that reality.
There is a place for all traditions in Ireland when Britain declares her intention to withdraw and the Irish people can determine their own future without foreign influence. - Yours, etc,
JOE LYNCH, Beechgrove Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, Limerick.
Madam, - Your front-page headline yesterday reads: "Intelligence saw no plan for violence, says report". How about common sense? - Yours, etc,
KEITH NOLAN, Caldragh, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.