MICK FINNEGAN,
Sir, - The attack on your Northern Correspondent, Gerry Moriarty, by David Rose, deputy leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (August 26th), is long on rhetoric and short on facts.
We can dispense with Mr Rose's suggestion that Mr Moriarty's article of August 20th ("A vicious campaign to create Taig-free areas", August 20th) is partly responsible for the alleged "failure of the peace process". There has been a consistent campaign of sectarian attacks against Roman Catholics for a number of years. The Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI, Alan McQuillan, said so on RTE's Morning Ireland on November 12th last (during the loyalist attacks on the Holy Cross school children and their parents).
If reporting this fact undermines the peace process in PUP eyes, is the PUP demanding that the attacks be conducted in secret, out of the glare of publicity, in order to preserve "peace"?
Mr Rose objects to the photographs that illustrate the article. Unfortunately for Mr Rose, many loyalist areas are dominated by large-scale murals, some of an exceptionally bloodthirsty nature, by the flags of illegal loyalist armies, by Union Jacks and Red Hand paraphernalia and by the painting of most things that do not move red, white and blue. As with loyalist enthusiasm for sectarian attacks and incessant marching from Easter to September every year, nationalists cannot compete with this frenzy of activity - possibly because they do not wish to do so.
I fully acknowledge that loyalists feel alienated. I also insist that unionists begin to address the facts and redress the deficiencies in their own body politic. Otherwise the presumed solution to the problem of loyalist feelings of alienation will be the traditional one. A large photograph printed in the Irish News last week showed the slogan "KAT" ("Kill all Taigs") imprinted in huge letters on the side of a mountain outside Belfast, clearly visible to its intended targets. If Mr Rose wanted to do something positive about that image, he could begin by removing it. Then he would not have to complain about the depiction of such images or commentary on them in newspapers. - Yours etc.,
MICK FINNEGAN,
Bannow Road,
Cabra,
Dublin 7.