Sir, - Like Robert Greacen (April 22nd) I would like to voice my support for the Belfast Agreement. One is always cautious, and naturally so; but a sound opportunity for peace in Northern Ireland has presented itself and, if flawed to some, nonetheless it is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. It has my vote.
It is to be hoped, among many other positive things, that the writing of Northern Ireland of the past three decades, with the unrest, consciously or otherwise, that lay at its hub, might begin to give way to a truly Ulster literature which will be free of the political loading which that geo-political designation has carried for so many years.
I was born in Belfast of Northern-Southern parents and, living in the Republic, see myself as an Ulster writer in the same sense as a writer from Cork might call himself a Munster writer. I think it a cultural absurdity to suggest that the region or province one comes from does not matter in terms of one's identity as a writer. But it will certainly be a relief no longer to be asked why I am not writing about "the Troubles".
There was, after all, a thriving literature in Northern Ireland before 1969, although the majority of our critics seem to me to have forgotten that. Critics and reviewers will now have to look with new eyes on writing from Northern Ireland and it may take some time for them to adjust to the fresh light. And it will be interesting to see what effect (if any, of course) lasting peace in Northern Ireland will have on literature and culture generally in the Republic.
For this reason, if no other, writers in the Republic should be interested in the agreement and I am surprised - though only a little, I confess - that the two writers whose letters I have read to date in your columns regarding the agreement are both Northern and, incidentally, both poets, Robert Greacen and Michael Longley.
Have the Republic's writers nothing to say on the matter at all? - Yours, etc.,
Fred Johnston
Carn Ard, Circular Road, Galway.